Rachel Denise McSwain
ECI 430 – Young
November 8, 2012
Internal War
The screen door crashes against the doorframe, and Patsy wheezes as she sits down in the
rocking chair on her front porch. The rattle in her chest doesn’t keep her from lighting up a
Lucky Strike cigarette. And another. And another. She’s waiting for the mail to come. It’s the
third day of the month. That means her check should arrive in its crisp, white envelope.
Patsy Carroll’s financial hardships, physical and mental health problems, and bitter
outlook are due to her past experiences – or the rest of the story.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Carroll,” says the postman as he hands her several envelopes. She
snatches them from him and turns to go back inside. The fan is on as high as it will go and the
metal pull jangles against the light bulb. The vinyl couch protector rustles as Patsy sits down to
leaf through the mail.
YOU’RE A WINNER! CALL 1-800-375-9987 TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE TODAY!
Junk.
Free prescription delivery, right to your front door! No more waiting in line!
Junk.
There’s the one. “Department of Treasury” is stamped in the top left corner. Patsy
carefully opens the envelope. $982 like always.
She shuffles to the kitchen and takes her pill organizer from the shelf. Opening the
compartment labeled “Tuesday,” Patsy makes sure all six pills are there. Little pink Xanax. Big
white multivitamin. Smaller blue Oxycodone. Two round Wellbutrin. Football shaped MAOI.
She gulps them down with one swallow. Struggling, Patsy reaches for the phone on the wall
above her. She calls Green Taxi by memory and requests a cab.
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Rachel Denise McSwain
ECI 430 – Young
November 8, 2012
Thirty minutes later, a horn toots outside the dilapidated house. It’s the home Patsy grew
up in. Paint is peeling from the sides and a rusted gutter hangs down, broken. The cab driver gets
out, offering to help Patsy down the stairs, knowing she’ll vehemently refuse his assistance.
“I can get it myself!” Patsy snarls, as she grips the handrail with her wrinkled hand and
swings her worn leather pocketbook over her shoulder. Once in the taxi, Patsy tells him the
address.
“1100 Tunnel Rd.”
“Is that the VA Hospital?” asks the driver.
“Yeah.”
Patsy looks down at her feet, so swollen that only her bedroom slippers fit now. Her
ankles are dotted with round purple bug bite scars. She touches the side of her face that is
mottled with shrapnel, still sensitive after 45 years.
The taxi pulls up to the hospital and it takes a great amount of effort for Patsy to pull
herself up from the car. A young nurse rushes out from behind the glass doors to offer a
wheelchair to Patsy. Exhausted and panting from the heat and exertion, she accepts, and lets the
woman push her inside to the front desk.
Patsy hands the receptionist her Medicare card. She scans it and much to Patsy’s relief,
tells her she will have no copay for the day’s visit. Minutes later, another nurse emerges from the
back and scans the waiting area.
“Patricia Carroll?” she asks hesitantly. She had seen the notes in Patsy’s chart about
aggression and anxiety.
Patsy is still too tired to stand, so the nurse pushes her to an exam room.
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Rachel Denise McSwain
ECI 430 – Young
November 8, 2012
“The doctor will be with you soon.”
She waits. The hospital is cool and clean, vastly different from her dark and musty home.
There’s a soft knock on the door and the doctor steps in. “Nice to see you again, Ms. Carroll,” he
says. “You had a birthday last week! I hope 68 is the best year for you yet!”
Patsy snorts, trying to suppress her ironic laughter.
“Now, has anything changed since you were here last?”
She thinks back over the past month, but the memories are fuzzy from the medications
she took earlier. The doctor says something about Malaria from long ago causing depression and
mentions the letters “PTSD” a couple times. As he stands, he reminds Patsy once again that
under no circumstances should she drink alcoholic beverages while taking her medications. He
hands her some more prescriptions and just like that, the appointment is over.
That evening, Patsy eats dinner alone and prepares for bed. She smokes one last cigarette
and stubs it out in a glass ashtray before drifting off to sleep.
Gunfire is blasting behind her and in the distance she hears cries for help. It’s hot. So hot
and humid. Insects are buzzing around her eyes. IV bags are quivering from mortars crashing
close by.
“We’ve got a triage one over here! We’ve gotta get to him now, before it’s too late!”
Patsy shouts to the head operating room nurse as she applies pressure to his stomach wound. Red
creeps up the white linen dressing and Patsy piles on more. She rips his undershirt further to see
the extent of the wound. “McNEIL” is written on the breast pocket of his Army issued jacket.
Blood trickles down the soldier’s tanned abdomen, and for the first time she looks up at his face.
He is unconscious, likely from the pain and blood loss. His face is filthy, but still obviously
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Rachel Denise McSwain
ECI 430 – Young
November 8, 2012
young. An eyebrow is singed off and a large gash stretches from one side of his chin to the other.
“This place is absolute hell,” Patsy thinks to herself. She knows time is running out, but the
operating tables and doctors are all attending to other boys, all as badly wounded as this one or
worse. Keeping one hand on the wound, Patsy uses the other to check his pulse. It’s fading. She
frantically yells for help again, eyes searching for anyone who could help her save this boy. The
hospital is packed. Every doctor and nurse at the hospital was called in after his chopper was shot
down. Patsy checks his pulse again. He’s dead. She smacks the stainless steel table with her
palm, leaving a red handprint, and covers him with a sheet.
The scenes behind Patsy’s closed eyes are continually changing, as if her eyelids are
projection screens flipping through photos. There is a soldier with his face bandaged and a stump
for a leg. She sees the flying cockroaches that congregate around the spotlights at night. Patches
of land that were formerly trees and Quonset huts are now black char from the napalm. Barbed
wire, dirty soldiers, and bodybags.
But most of all, the eyes. Empty, defeated eyes. American and Vietnamese.
Patsy lurches forward, and the involuntary movement jolts her awake. The clock says
3:04. Her nightgown is drenched as if she had just walked out of the ocean and her breathing is
rapid and raspy. The pills don’t help with the nightmares. Even forty years later, nothing helps
with the nightmares.
The problems Patricia Carroll faces are a direct result of her service as an Army Corps
nurse during the height of the Vietnam War. Her experiences have not only affected her mentally
and physically, but have hardened her emotions and made her angry and bitter. While stationed
in Saigon, Patricia was exposed to the worst of the war. However, she did not leave those
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Rachel Denise McSwain
ECI 430 – Young
November 8, 2012
experiences and memories behind once the war was over. They continue to affect her today and
will haunt her until she leaves this world.
And now you know the rest of the story.
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Rachel Denise McSwain
ECI 430 – Young
November 8, 2012
Bibliography
Patricia Carroll, (Army Corps Nurse), interview by Lindy Hughes, "Interview with Patricia Ann
Carroll," The Veterans History Project, Record, May 24, 2007, October 3, 2012,
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001.72595/transcript?ID=sr0001
.
Jeanne Markle, (Army Corps Nurse), interview by Mark Doud, "Interview with Jeanne Markle,"
The Veterans History Project, Record, unknown, October 3, 2012,
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001.03442/transcript?ID=sr0001
6