Completing the Circle
ROGER MARSHALL

    Roger Marshall joined the RAF after growing up during and in the aftermath of the second world war. But a strange change came over him, and he informed his superiors that he wanted to save lives instead of taking them. He began the long study to become a prosthetist. In the late 1960s he learned that the Quakers needed someone with his qualifications to help the civilian casualties of the Vietnam war. He didn't think twice.

    When I joined AFSC's medical team in Quang Ngai, Vietnam, in 1968, 1 felt myself a most unusual candidate. I became a prosthetics/ orthotist and teacher to some 20 young Vietnamese who were studying and making artificial limbs and braces for the civilian casualties of that war.

    When I was 11, the second world war came to an end. I still have memories of my mother dancing round a bonfire in the middle of the street in England. Neighbours, friends, and relatives were there, dancing, kissing, and crying with joy and relief. There was good reason to celebrate. My father, a first world war veteran and a Scot, no longer had to patrol the streets of Birmingham during air raids. My older brother would be coming back from the Pacific, and my sister, who had been in the British army, could fold up her uniform. Gone were the days when we had to run for underground shelters as the Nazi Luftwaffe bombs dropped around us. 'Our Boys', those who survived, were coming home. We kids played war games in the bomb craters.

    Then came a second trauma. Still aged 11, I was sitting in a cinema when the news came on, showing the results of the Holocaust. Skeletal bodies were bulldozed into mass graves. The documentaries of Belsen, Dachau, and Auschwitz followed and increased my young horror of fascism. I regretted the fact I had been too young to fight against this demonic evil. I was angry and frustrated.

    When the time came, there was no question of evading the draft. So before age 18, I found myself in boot camp, with rifle and bayonet slugging through assault courses, plunging my bayonet into large straw-filled hanging bags that had been described (by our drill instructors) as 'the enemy who were coming to rape and kill our mothers and sisters in their beds'. The only real things my father taught me were boxing and the martial arts, so I was in my element during those basic training days. Then came the honour of being chosen to take part in the Route Lining Force for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. My family was proud of me. I had passed through the initiations and become a man and a warrior.

    After those months of youthful excitement, a strange change came over me. I informed my superiors that although I had no objection to active service, I wanted to save lives instead of' taking them. I got the chance to go to medical training school and graduated as a medical corpsman. I volunteered for overseas active duty, was posted to Aden in Southern Yemen, and spent some time in Somalia. It was during this time that I got the news that my Scottish cousin, Robert Marshall, had been killed in Korea, serving with a Highland Regiment.

    After I left the RAF, I began the long study to become a prosthetist, treated many veterans of both world wars, Korea, and also civilian amputees of the Blitzkrieg. During the 1950s I became somewhat of a history buff and began to learn more about war and peace. I became an active member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and helped organize peaceful demonstrations. This brought me into contact with the British Campaign for the End of the Vietnam War. Many of the activists were politically motivated; many others, like the Quakers, were motivated by spiritual convictions that war was not the answer to conflict. As a veteran with many memories, I became interested in this concept. I began to study the history of Vietnam and how and why the war had evolved. In the late 1960s I learned that the Quakers needed someone with my qualifications to help the civilian casualties of  that dreadful war. I never thought twice. It was obvious to me that I had to go help. I had to put my body where my mouth was. It was not an easy experience over the next three and a half years. After many interviews and language training, I joined a medical team of dedicated individuals.

    There were times when we had to go to the bunker while rockets, mortars, shells, and machine-gun fire were close by. One time, when the NLF had captured two-thirds of Quang Ngai and their flags were flying in town, US Marines came to evacuate us along with other foreign groups and medical personnel. We refused to leave. Not one of the Quaker team elected to be evacuated. We stayed on, working in the emergency room of the hospital. US fighter bomber planes were flying over the hospital, dropping napalm nearby. Casualties, mostly children, women, and old people, were being brought into the emergency room. We ran out of all medications and had to treat wounded and dying casualties without even an aspirin. Blood ran like water. Dot Weller and I, at one point, held a little girl in our arms, trying to stop the outflow of intestinal contents from an abdominal wound. She died in our arms.

    Sometime, I believe in 1969, a little three or four year old child was brought to us. Her name was Le Trinh. She had lost her right leg during fighting in Quang Ngai Province. She had a hip disarticulation amputation, meaning that there was no residual limb left to which to fit a prosthesis. So we made her a prosthesis with the socket encompassing her whole pelvis. This is one of the most difficult prostheses to make, to fit, and for the patient to wear.

    A couple of years ago, I received a letter from Le Trinh with a photograph, informing me that she was now married with a child of her own and was working for the Agricultural Bank in Quang, Ngai, but had to get around without a prosthesis. Almost 30 years later, she had somehow, tracked me down and asked if I could help her get a new prosthesis!

    I immediately contacted Anh Quy, our senior prosthetist orthotist from the Quang Ngai days. He is now in a supervisory position at the Rehab Center in Qui Nhon. He contacted Le Trinh and arranged for her to come down to Qui Nhon during one of our training seminars. She came into the center using a crutch under her right arm.  She had been using this method to get around for many years. This was a wonderful opportunity to help Le Trinh and also to update training for the Vietnamese prosthetists. We made her a more modern endoskeletal prosthesis. When we came to fit it on her, she leaned her crutch up against the wall and just took off walking without even a cane.

    I had a lump in my throat as big as a football. I could not speak for a while; I just stood there with a big smile on my face, along with everyone else. It was at that time, I believe, that my 'Dream' came into focus.

    Since the end of the war, Quang Ngai has not had a prosthetic/orthotic rehab center. Amputees and patients needing orthotic care have to travel north to Danang or south to Qui Nhon. Most patients just do not have the time to leave the farms or rice fields or the resources to make such a trip.

    My dream has been to help build a desperately needed new orthotic/prosthetic rehab center in Quang Ngai, which is situated just six miles from the My Lai Memorial Peace Park. I have returned to Quang Ngai a number of times to see if this is a possibility. It is.

    At a recent meeting of NGOs and Southeast Asian diplomats at Bryn Mawr College, I asked if anyone was interested in helping me to raise funds for such a center. We are now seriously fundraising. $250,000 will be the startup cost. Then a trust fund needs to be raised for ongoing services. The Vietnamese government will pay for salaries (very small) for students and practitioners.

    A few months ago we all met in Vietnam and traveled up to Hanoi to meet with the officials to make this proposal legal and formal. Mr. Cuc. director of the Danang Center and a man devoted to the needs of the disabled in Vietnam, came with us to Hanoi. A formal proposal, some 20 pages, has been sent to us with blueprints of the proposed canter. The government of Vietnam has already designated land for the building, which will be close to the Provincial Hospital. The other exciting news is that Anh Quy, who is well known to the team, has been nominated as the director of this center. A number of our wartime students have also volunteered to return to Quang Ngai to become practitioners there. We are devoted to completing the circle; over 30 years later we will again teach and serve the people of Quang Ngai Province.

Roger Marshall is a member of Orono, Maine Friends (Quaker) Meeting, USA. He is a consultant in the field of prosthetics and orthotics and project manager for the proposed Quang Ngai orthotic/prosthetic center.

    The land has been allocated and permission to proceed granted as soon as funds are raised. For further information or to make a donation please contact:

Donations are to be made out to:

FPOR-V Quang Ngai Clinic, Vietnam, but sent by mail to:

Fund for Prosthetic-Orthotic Rehabilitation-Vietnam
Roger D. Marshall
PO Box 639
Corinth, Maine 04427

Not for profit, tax deductible, non-government organization:

Please direct all inquiries to Roger Marshall, Project Manager:

Fund for Prosthetic-Orthotic Rehabilitation-Vietnam
Roger D. Marshall
Project Manager
P O Box 639
Corinth, Maine  04427-0639 USA

This article originally appeared in Friends Journal.

He drew a circle which shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout
But love and I had the wit to win
We drew a circle which took him in.

-Edwin Markhatti