Memoirs of 2dLt W. B. Jackson, USMC
BROOKLYN NAVAL HOSPITAL
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We were unloaded and taken initially to Brooklyn Naval Hospital. After a day or so of check up etc, I was transferred to a civilian orthopedic hospital at 5 Livingston Place in New York City. It had quite a contingent of Naval and Marine patients, and many specialties to restore joint and bone usage. My knee was quite stiff and I was scheduled for daily whirlpool baths on my leg and manual therapy. Our life was much more civilian than military. In my
case the Navy doctor had a specialist from Philadelphia check my leg. He said the stiffness was largely due to adherence of the muscles of the lower third of my upper leg to the bone at the fracture site. He had had a half dozen or so operations on like conditions. They cut the muscle loose from the bone, forced a bend in the knee and splinted it that way until the muscles healed. I asked the results. In more than half of the cases he said stiff bent knees resulted. I preferred mine straight, so he recommended and the government furnished me with a walk-about type of leg brace. Two rods down the sides with joints at the knee which could be locked to permit only a set bend in the knee. This to protect the joint from damage due to over-bend being forced. I wore it a few times then discarded it. It was heavy, had to be laced up and unlaced, made my leg ache and I really could not see the need for it if I was careful. I remember one occasion when I was on a drive through one of the parks. I was using crutches and wearing the brace. I fell down a short flight of steps and my leg hurt more than I liked around the brace ends.
The Navy officer in charge of us authorized the wearing of civies since it was a civilian hospital. I had come home with several hundred dollars in the pocket of my pajama blouse so I decided to buy some civies. The nurses aides at the hospital were all society girls from the area and the lady in charge of them was very kind to us vets. When she heard that I was going clothes shopping she insisted on having he chauffeur and private car take me on my spree. I asked Captain MacFarland, one of my ward mates to go with me. I was still walking on crutches and did not like to tackle New York downtown alone. So bright and early one morning I got up put on a heavy robe and sheep skin lined slippers and Mac and I went down to where her car was waiting. As we reached it door which had the initials SB on it Mac backed away, straightened up and saluted smartly. I asked what the idea was and he said, "Do you know whose car that is?" I told him it was Miss Butler's. He said , "Yes, but it is THE Miss Butler." He asked if I knew who she was and when I said I didn't he told me that she was the Vice Chairman of the Republican Party for the State of New York and her father was President of Columbia University and one of the political powers in the State. Well, we went on down to Brooks Brothers clothing store. I asked for a room and a salesman who could hand an entire wardrobe sale and proceeded to spend some of my money. Two suits, underwear, shirts, ties, socks shoes and all the rest of the necessaries. Then back to the hospital.
Miss Butler was extremely good to us Marines in particular. Once a week her box at the Metropolitan Opera was ours if we cared to attend. Sorry, none of us but one did and when he came back to the Hospital he got some of the fellows lined up and put on a burlesque of the concert orchestra he had heard. Twice a week her car and Chauffeur were mine for an afternoon's drive about the city and its environs. I could take any of the fellows with me I wanted but it was primarily for me. I was the only non-ambulatory patient in the ward, very feeble on crutches even around the ward. My use of her car was not too frequent. The fellows who could walk were not interested in spending the whole afternoon in the car and I found going by myself rather lonesome.
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