He said he feels for all veterans who have answered the nation’s call and who will stop today to reflect on that service.
Veterans’ health care is Sherwood’s stock in trade.
Sherwood wears two hats at the Olin E. Teague Veterans’ Center in Temple. He’s chief of staff for the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System and also associate dean of Veterans Affairs for the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine.
Sherwood oversees programs that heal veterans of conflicts from World War II to the present. Right now he’s focused on the needs of new, younger veterans coming into the system. They are the young men and women returning from the Middle East with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI).
Sherwood said the rate of stress disorder was high during Vietnam.
“I think we would have had less PTSD from Vietnam if the social support had been better at the time,” Sherwood said.
“Now, we are probably going to see just as much PTSD from the current war in spite of the better social support. What is happening today is a lot of young people are going over to Iraq for two or three tours.”
Sherwood said the research on stress disorder shows exposure to life-threatening circumstances brings an increased chance for the malady. The same is true for traumatic brain injury.
He said the quality of medical care in the field, at hospitals at the rear and the after care in the states is better for the Iraq soldiers today than it was for those in Vietnam.
“Of course the body armor and protective measures are also better than Vietnam,” Sherwood said. “People are surviving that would have died during Vietnam.”
He said he still reflects with horror at the sight of four C-130s that lined up once a week on a taxiway at the airfield at Hue Phu Bai - Sherwood’s duty station in Vietnam.
“They would be filled with body bags from the front of the plane to the back - eight across - stacked seven or eight high on separate stretchers,” Sherwood said. “Four planeloads of dead people your age is tough to handle when you are 19.”
Sherwood said he joined the Marines after finishing high school in August 1965. He went through boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina.
“The Marines prepare you for the worst battle conditions,” Sherwood said. “In that day there was a significant amount of physical beating to make you tougher - something I think they’ve stopped in recent years. They told us, ‘if we stop beating you it simply means we don’t love you anymore.’”
Afterwards he went to Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, for infantry training. Then it was out to San Diego for electronics school and aviation radar fundamentals and repair.
Sherwood said as the top graduate in his class of 10 he was given first choice for duty assignments. The choices were one slot in Hawaii and nine slots in Vietnam.
“The kid who graduated second really wanted Hawaii,” said Sherwood. “He was waiting for me to make my choice. So I said I would take WESTPAC. I volunteered for Vietnam.”
“I was 18 years old at that time. When you’re that age you think it’s all an adventure and that only others get hurt. You’re invulnerable.”
Sherwood was assigned to keeping radar and associate electronics repaired at the airfield at Hue Phu Bai. There was an Army hospital there.
“Some things burn in your memory,” said Sherwood. “They would fly in the wounded. I remember crossing the taxiway and hearing the bloodcurdling screams of men who had been shot or burned horribly. It’s something you can’t forget.”
Mortar rounds from the North Vietnamese attacked the airfield periodically. But Sherwood said friendly fire was a bigger danger.
“As standard operational procedure 105 mm howitzers would drop rounds just outside the perimeter to foil any associated ground attack,” he said. “The good news was that there never was an associated ground attack. The bad news was that as our base grew the perimeter moved outward. The concertina wire was moved out. We built new sandbag bunkers where we stood guard duty.
“But when the next mortar attack came and the 105 mm howitzers dropped their rounds nobody had told them that the perimeter had been moved out. So they dropped it on our people that are out there in these bunkers guarding the perimeter.
“It was a communications breakdown,” he said. “It was straightened out. The good news is nobody got hurt. But 105 mm rounds landing all around was more frightening than the mortar attack.”
Sherwood said the Marine Corps is built on discipline. One day while everyone was in the mess hall somebody yelled, “Hit the deck!”
“So everybody hit the deck,” said Sherwood.
It was a ground attack and bullets were flying through the mess hall and living area, he said.
“We were co-located right next door to an ARVN boot camp - That’s Army of the Republic of Vietnam,” Sherwood said. “They had celebrated a graduation that day. Three of them got drunk and set up a machine gun and started shooting at us. And those were our allies. Well, nobody on our side got hurt. Nobody got hit in part because of the discipline.”
Sherwood said a Medivac squadron of helicopters was stationed at the airfield and the door gunners kept their machine guns in their quarters.
“So within minutes we had about 20, M-60 machine guns returning fire on them,” he said. “Those three didn’t last very long.”
Sherwood said after Vietnam and completion of his military obligation he was accepted into Boston University. He received his undergraduate degree in 1971 and his M.D. from Boston University School of Medicine in 1975. He completed residency in internal medicine from Boston City Hospital in 1977 and a fellowship in infectious diseases from Boston University in 1979.
In addition to service in the private sector, Sherwood has served as chief of medicine at the Amarillo VA Medical Center, associate chief for graduate medical education at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, chief of staff for the Amarillo VAMC and director of the Amarillo VAMC.
He was selected as chief of staff in his current position in October 2006.
Sherwood said he has a message for young veterans entering the VA system.
“If they are having problems, if they are waking up with nightmares, if they have chemical dependencies, if they are having relationship problems with wives and families - don’t be macho and think you don’t need help,” Sherwood said.
“Come in and let us help you.”
He said there is a tendency for young people not to admit what they have been through is bothering them and that they need help.
“It may get better over many years,” he said. “But if you can get there sooner and get your life in order and have happier relationships at home by getting therapy - let our folks evaluate you and see how we can help.”
hclark@temple-telegram.com
