Ok countdown. This time 4 for real.
Wasted Monday #1
Went to the doctor yesterday for the first of my pre-admission check up's. I think this one was only to determine if I still intended to go forward, and hadn't weanied out....The Physician's Assistant, (or "P.A" as it's now known, ) went over the pertinent details of my next Monday visit (8-21), and took the pulse in my feet..
What the hell that was all about, I don't know...Making sure that I wasn't a member of the walking dead maybe??
From there, I had to go to a second doctor...this one was way more necessary...Hopefully this one could help me walk again,.........today.
Back In My Day.....
In the Army during basic training I injured my foot. I learned that due to really high arches I had managed to stress the Long Plantar Ligament in my foot during a run through one of the many GI-Joe obstacle courses that they make you run through during the 13 week training period that was my training regimen.
*Exhibit A
They put me in tennis shoes for a week, and restricted me from running and jumping for a week.
Once I got into the "Regular Army", the injury re-occurred, and the local orthopaedic branch made a boot insert to support my arch, and I healed..I wore that insert until it disintegrated. It made me walk so that my right foot hit the floor more loudly than my left. When I walked into any building, and down any hallway, or corridor, you could hear me coming...
"Slap-thump,slap-thump,slap-thump"..."Here comes Matkosky!"
When I was accepted to flight school here in Alabama, the injury had long since went away. The insert in my boot was long gone,..and I started the Warrant Officer Flight Program class 1-87.
"She went off to find the foot lights,...I took off to find the sky".............
Only Two things come out of Oklahoma,...Steers, and Queers..
The Warrant officer program in the US Army is an intense year of academics, mind games, applied stress, extreme physicality, and of course.....flying helicopters. If you've ever seen the movie An Officer and a Gentleman, you get only an inkling of the crap that you have to go through.... You'd also know had you ever seen the movie, that the bold face header above is a quote from that movie. In the "real " Warrant Officer School, we had to shave the hair on boot brushes, starch socks and underwear, (then roll that stuff into little logs that were so stiff, they stayed rolled.) Polish boot polish can lids, eat food we couldn't look at, bury dead flying bugs (flies, bees, mosquitos, moths) in coffins made out of match boxes, dress in Class A's and have funerals for a "fallen aviator". We were subjected to rigorous inspections and time management routines,.. and had to work off the demerits if we failed either, and................. Do all of this while trying to learn the basic academics of rotary wing aviation.
Did I mention that they make you run, and jump?
During an obstacle course run in week 4, The Long Plantar Ligament gets a full impact on the other side of a trench that we had to jump across. An exposed tree root, like a rung on a ladder was there waiting on me to land on it.
The difference this time between the previous "stress" injuries in the past, and this one was that this injury was a full tear to that ligament,....Serious enough to have to go from Ft Rucker in Alabama, 250 miles to the other Army post in Alabama (Ft Mcclellan) at that time, the podiatry school for the Army.
The Doctor tells me that I was gonna have to be put on full physical restriction until I healed completely, they put me in a cast..." But Doc,....What about school? I can't fly a helicopter in a cast?..."
"They'll re-cycle you into the next class after you get better...." The Doc says.. " How long will I be clumping around in this thing?." I ask..."4,.... maybe 6 weeks...All depends on you." he replies..."How do I guarantee that this won't happen again i f I do that?" I ask back... "Oh there's no guarantee,..matter of fact, w/ your high arch, I'm betting I'll see you again".
Given that news....What would you have done?
I went back to the unit,...they cycled me out of the active class in put me in a "Med hold" detachment that was attached to a infantry unit as overseer. The 509th infantry IIRC
We had nothing to do,...except languish around. Nobody cared where we were, what we were doing, and where we went, as long as we were there to sign the dotted line on the check in/out sheet daily.
I was in hell.
It took me two weeks of that sht before I came to terms w/ my decision to resign my slot in flight school, and turn in my WOC (Warrant Officer candidate) insignia to the commander.
Despite the fact that I had went into the Army at 28, Despite the fact that I had taken a risk that I would even get accepted to flight school as one amongst 10's of thousands each year, despite the fact that I had been given a less than 50/50 chance of making it through the school w/o a recurrence of this injury...This was my situation now... I could either ask to be separated from the Army due to my inability to complete the course for medical reasons,
or, weather the injury out and retry the school,
or weather the injury out while in some other unit, as an enlisted soldier in a MOS (military occupational specialty) that I trained in, but never spent one day actively doing for the remainder of the 4 years I had enlisted for.
I just wanted to finish my obligation,...I decided to stay in as an enlisted,..and hopefully get the opportunity to cross train into some other job other than Field Artillery Crewman.
** Commander's Door**
(Sign Gives instructions for entering)
1. KNOCK 3 TIMES LOUDLY!
2. Wait for commander to respond.
3. STATE THE FOLLOWING!!!....Sir! Candidate ___________ Requests Permission to Enter!
What is on the other side of the door is a Captain with the word RANGER emblazoned across the wall behind him.
He has no sympathy for any of your circumstance, He certainly doesn't give one rats ass as to why or how you got there in front of him. He only reads you the riot act when he learns of your choice to throw away a "once in a lifetime opportunity to "Be all you can be, Above the best", and asks you if you know how many people that you "cheated " out of this opportunity. Despite the fact that your are standing in front of him,.....in a cast.
All of his questions you reply to. You tell him that you do in fact know how many people you cheated, and that you are all too painfully aware of those fact that a once in a lifetime chance has slipped through your fingers.
He looks at you like the loser you must be, snarls his lip, and growls out that your request is approved, and tells you to get out of his face.
What a guy.
So you're wondering,...why the trip down memory lane?.....What has all of this ancient history got to do with today, and the here and now?.....
Well,....the deck is almost done...
And I just had to test the launchpad to see how far I could run and jump into that pool.
Running and jumping.....wasn't there something in the rest of all this about that being a bad thing here?
Oh yeah,......Torn ligaments.
Hello old friend.
Bare heel hitting those deck boards was all that was needed... It went something like .boom, boom BOOM...OWWWWW!!! SPLASH!!
Now I gotta wear this sweetie for the next two weeks prior to the surgery in the hopes that the tendon will heal enough to not need the boot,..
Welcome to my world.
..........
