Army Medical Care: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

One of the great benefits of being in the Army is that your medical care is free, that is free if you don’t mind waiting a bit and enduring while getting it. To get any medical care the soldier must go on what is termed sick call. Then when the soldier gets permission to go he enters the eternal lines of waiting for the care.

There are some who have had bad experiences with the medical care the military offers. There are others that have had good experiences. For those who are around for an extended period of time they get to experience the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The good I personally know of is that my first wife who had a heart murmur for most of her life was never properly diagnosed until a young Army doctor came along. He listened to the heart and said that the previous diagnosis was incorrect. All previous doctors had said it was the wrong valve. Later years and surgeries proved him to be right. Many experienced heart doctors had missed that one. The young doctor was really good.

Then there are some of the ugly experiences with the Army medical folks. Just prior to a trip to the field in Texas we had a young flight surgeon come and give us a briefing about the dangers of the heat. He was doing real well telling us all the things we should do to protect ourselves from the heat until he got to the water bit.

The young flight surgeon announced that we must drink sixteen liters of water a day to keep from being dehydrated. He then stated it a second time. At that point I thought he might just have liters on his mind, but meant cups or glasses or something, and if someone brought it to his attention he could correct his mistake so I raised my hand. Quickly doing the math in my head I knew that would be over 4 gallons of water a day.

Soon the flight surgeon asked if I had a question. As nicely and politely as I could I said, “Sir, you stated that we must drink sixteen liters of water a day. Do you really mean liters or is that glasses or something else?”

He didn’t hesitate a second, but again said that we must drink sixteen liters of water a day. He went over it a couple of more times telling us how important it was to drink sixteen liters of water a day. Every time he said liter.

Many of looked at each other and just shrugged. After the meeting we kind of all agreed that if anything happened to anyone of us, the others were not to let him touch us. If he was that far off on what we should drink a day then he could be that far off on administering a high-powered medication.

Then there were Army dentists. I had some really memorable experiences with those boys. Actually my first memorable experience was with a German dentist hired by the Army to care for the soldiers in Germany. I went to see him for an annual checkup.

While I was there I thought I would just ask the dentist a question I had. I had one filling that was rough on the edge and when I flossed my teeth the rough edge would tear the floss. It seemed like it would be a simple thing to just take his little grinder and smooth it off a bit. That’s all I really wanted.

As soon as I mentioned the filling his eyes lit up and he could see opportunity knocking. He took his little pick and started digging. He grunted and agreed that it was rough. Next came the prying and pulling. He had one arm around my head and was pulling with the other. I would have shut my mouth but this was a German dentist going after a rough filling with a vengeance.

After a few minutes of being pulled and pried on the filling must have moved. With a triumphant voice he proclaimed that American fillings were no good and that he would have to replace it. Without any hesitation he started the task of replacing it. Out came the old filling and in went the superior German filling. Of course all of expected gentle care of a leftover German SS dentist went into the work.

Soon the dentist was finished and he announced that he had completely taken care of it for me. My mouth was sore and numb but I was happy to be on my way. I was a little less happy when the next morning the dental floss was shredded by the rough edge of my new superior German filling.

My next experience with an Army dentist came in Texas. I had a baby tooth that had never come out so the dentist suggested that I have it removed so that the permanent tooth could come in. It seemed like a good idea and the dentist said it would take just a few minutes for the oral surgeon to yank that little tooth out. Sounded like a good idea so I scheduled the appointment with the oral surgeon.

The oral surgeon looked at the tooth and confidentially said that it would just take a minute to pop that bad baby out of there. He gave me a shot of Novocain and prepared his tools or weapons. After a few minutes of waiting for the Novocain to take effect he went to work.

With fancy little pliers he grabbed a hold of the tooth and pulled. It stayed put. He pried back and forth to loosen the tooth. Now he decided that this tooth was fastened better than he had thought and so he stepped up the twisting and trying to loosen the tooth. That tooth was in there and wasn’t about to come out. The surgeon was really working now. More twisting and prying to get the tooth loose. More pulling but still the tooth was staying put.

The surgeon was trying different places to stand to get better leverage and still that didn’t work. Still again he tried to loosen the tooth by rocking and twisting. By this time the rocking and twisting was getting pretty serious and even with Novocain it seemed like quite a bit.

Suddenly there was a snap followed by the surgeon uttering, “Oops”. That is not what you want to hear a medical person say when they are working on you. If my mouth hadn’t been full of cotton, pliers and fingers I would have blurted out, “What do you mean oops? What happened?”

But the answer to what happened came quickly as the surgeon removed the pliers with only a portion of the tooth. Then he held the broken tooth up in front of me and said, “It broke. Now I’ll have to cut the gum and go up in after the rest of the tooth. This is going to be longer and harder than I thought.”

For about an hour the surgeon cut, hammered, chiseled, pulled, twisted and groaned. He was working like a rascal and I was just holding on to the chair arms. And at times I was trying to see some reflection in his glasses to see if I still had anything left in my mouth.

When the surgeon finally finished and announced that he had the tooth removed he said, “You have some wisdom teeth that should probably come out. Schedule an appointment on your way out and I’ll take them out for you.” He may still be waiting because I have yet to schedule the appointment. I thought it best to leave those teeth there.

Then came the ugly. Years later when I was full time in the National Guard I went to Fort Drum for some dental work. I went in and one of the dentists put a new computer generated cap on one of my teeth. He was as proud as he could be of his new toy. It went well and I was happy until the cap came off.

When I returned to Fort Drum they assigned me to a different dentist. He was happy that the cap put on by the other dentist had come off. His comment was something like, “I told them their computer toy wouldn’t work. Now we’ll put a real cap on the tooth”. It sounded okay to me. What do I know about dentistry?

While sitting in the dentist’s chair I did notice a sign that said “Semper Grumpy”, (always grumpy). What do I care if the guy is a little grumpy? I only need a cap on my tooth. He’s a Lieutenant Colonel and should be a professional.

The dentist was pretty rough when he was working in my mouth but I was a soldier and took it in stride. As the afternoon ticked by he became rougher and grumpier. Just after 4 PM the civilian assistants said goodbye and left and that didn’t help his attitude at all. At that point he only had to glue the cap in place and we would be done.

With all the necessary items set on his tray he was set to finish the job. The first thing to do was to put some high-speed glue on the tooth. He pulled out a plastic tube filled with glue and put in my mouth. He strained and grunted but no glue came out. Then came a few cuss words put no glue followed. I could see the strain on his face as he put all the effort he could into getting the tube to expel some glue.

Suddenly the tube burst and blue glue went everywhere. I had a mouth full of blue glue, there was some on my flight suit, and there was glue on various spots around the room. I would have laughed if it hadn’t been in my mouth. He quickly pulled back and told me to spit that stuff out of my mouth. I really didn’t need to be prompted on that one.
Then the colonel yelled at the top of his lungs to get some help in there. Others came running. They looked like they wanted to laugh but didn’t dare because the colonel was not a happy camper.

During the cleanup the colonel told them not to worry about the uniform because the glue would wash right off. I kept the flight suit because it still has the stains on it. After a few minutes most things were cleaned up enough to allow us to continue. I just needed the cap glued on and I was ready to get out of there.

With a new tube of glue the colonel started again. This time the glue came out and he quickly put the cap on and told me to “bite as hard as you can on this”. I started biting as hard as I could and he left the room. About ten minutes went by and I continued to bite as hard as I could. The colonel finally returned to the room and as soon as he saw me he said, “What are you doing?” Through clenched teeth I said, “I’m biting as hard as I can”. He then growled, “You only have to bite for thirty seconds”. I relaxed my bite but said nothing. The last instructions I had been given were to bite as hard as I could and I had been following them.

As I got up out of the chair to leave I pointed to the sign “Semper grumpy” and said, “Nice sign”. That was the last big experience I had with Army dentists. Among the Army medical community I had seen the good, the bad, and the ugly!

Life is just like the Army medical community. There are the good, the bad and the ugly. Not only are there people that fit in all of those categories, there are events that fit into those categories. Some days are good, some are bad and some are down right ugly. But like the experience with “Semper Grumpy”, these too shall pass. Just hang in there during those bad and ugly days and bask in the good times. The good is always worth putting up with bad and the ugly!