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Show Charle A. "Red" Beam July 11 2001 of it there was a nurse sitting by my bunk crying. And, I aid, "What' the matter, h n?" She aid, "They haven't even changed your bandages." I'd been out of it. S he carne with a couple of corpsmen and a doctor, and they changed the bandages and everything. And then they put a wire loop around each hand. They drilled holes through my fingers and stretched them out because I couldn't open my fingers. And after that was over they gave me two tennis balls. And the doctor said, "Well, you'll be here a year to a year and half. It takes that long with burns, bad burns like you've got. The skin doesn't grow back under that. We'll have to do skin grafts." I was there for awhile, and he took a little piece of scar off, and wrapped it up. And a couple of days later he took it off. and he says, "You can't do that." I said, "Okay, I'll quit." He said, "No, you're growing skin." (Showing Winston his hands). If you look real close you can see there are some scars like that one, but not many. Well, right after I got there I ran into Captain Zach out in the hall one night. And, I said, "Boy, I can't write." That's when my fingers were-and I said, "I've got to write letters to all these families of the guys I lost." He said, "Well, I'll send a yeoman up, and he'll do it for you." So he did. When I got to where I was about ready to go home, they said, "What unit are you going to?" I said, "Argus 8." And the yeoman called me back to the office, and he said, "There is no Argus 8; never has been." I said, "What are you talking about?" He says, "There isn't one. There's nothing in the navy records about an Argus 8." There's isn't today. I don't know why they wiped the records clean, but they did. And later, many 60 |
