Wade L Ellen

His boyish grin, his southern politeness, his light southern drawl and his last name are some of my fond memories I have of Wade L. Ellen.  When the TAC officers of our Warrant Officer Candidate class would call out his name (we never had first names), it made you pause just for a millisecond:  “Ellen,” they would yell.  And a male voice would answer, “Yes sir!” in a husky voice that didn’t seem to fit the persona.  

Wade L. Ellen was from Norfolk, VA; born 10/25/1951.  We graduated from our Warrant Officer class as helicopter pilots on October 5, 1951, just before he turned 21.  He had a fiancée back home and a motorcycle on base.  What more could you want, so youthful and free. 

I never saw Wade after the graduation:  we all shook hands, some hugs (we didn’t “high—five” back then), and wished each other the best:  “See ya in Nam,” we said.  Wade and the rest of our graduating class, all Warrant Officers (WO1), had assignments to Vietnam.  Some arrived in-country before the end of the year; I arrived Jan 1, 1972.  

On April 24, 1972 I was flying a Huey helicopter on missions around Cao Lanh, which lies along the mighty Mekong River, and south of the Cambodian border.  That day my crew and I flew an inspection team into a small outpost that had been overrun by the Viet Cong and we pulled a medevac for some wounded Vietnamese soldiers.  We flew for six hour and forty-five minutes and returned safely to our base.

On April 24, 1972, Wade L. Ellen was flying as a copilot in a Huey helicopter in Kon Tum Province, which lies in the Central Highlands region of Vietnam and shares borders with Laos and Cambodia.  He and his crew were sent to rescue a group of US Special Forces soldiers being overrun by the North Vietnamese.  They landed at the Tanh Canh Base Camp and picked up four survivors.  As they lifted off and started flying away, the pilot (identified as Lt. James E. Hunsicker) was shot and killed by ground fire.  WO1 Wade L. Ellen tried to recover control of the helicopter but because it was so close to the ground, it crashed and caught fire about 500 meters from where they departed in a river ravine.  Several of the occupants were able to escape and were eventually rescued.  Wade L. Ellen was killed in the crash:  his body was never recovered.  He was 21.

I was in Saigon on a mission late in 1972 when I saw a fellow classmate.  During our small talk he told me about the death of Wade L. Ellen.  That was a sad moment for me.  I didn’t think it was fair; in my mind he didn’t deserve it (not that anyone did); he was too nice, polite and just one of the good guys. 

He was our only classmate who perished; others were wounded in crashes and returned home, carrying the scars of the war.   But his family carries the scar of his loss forever; that’s why we have Memorial Day.  To remember.

Beauty

One of the great loves I have in photography is portraiture.  Why portraiture and not landscapes or abstracts?  I have this wondering eye always looking at the landscape of each person's face, looking for a special abstract beauty which is emoted by facial characteristics, the way a person looks, and the way a person carries themselves.  It may be someone just passing by, it may be someone sitting at a distance, or someone I see routinely.

I was photographing a young lady the other day, using various street spots for backdrops when this beautiful young woman passed by.  Our eyes caught but she disappeared into a doorway of the office.  A bit later she came out and I invited her to wait for a moment while I took a photograph of her.

 After several snaps with a willing participant, she disappeared down the walkway. 

When I uploaded my day's work, there she was.  So I proceeded to go to work adding my special "soup" to the mix of a pretty lady and a vision of what I wanted her to be.

I'll go out and look for another beauty.













 

Painful

So what is it like to be "hammered" by unexplained pain and left unattended in an emergency room waiting area.  Not fun, to say the least.  So with the controversy over Obama healthcare and all, the experience of actually having to use an emergency room in a local hospital is pretty revealing.

On a recent Monday I dragged myself to the emergency room because of excruciating pain in my lower abdomen.   To eliminate the suspense, it turned out to be a serious kidney stone episode which required surgery.

However, the broader point was the reception I received when I went to the triage section to get medical help.  (Let's just say, they have no customer SKILLS!)  I presented myself in severe, uncontrollable pain and was told to wait along with the 33 other people waiting in the same room.  A lady next to me had a headache.  A woman had been bitten two days earlier by a possible spider and the site was itching.  Lots of coughing and wheezing.  And what's up with the mental cases yelling and cursing...!

And then the triage nurse announced that the wait to be seen was four and one-half hours. Please.  Oh, and BTW, one of the emergency room workers told me, "Don't come on Mondays... these people are trying to get a slip to get out of work."

So after doing the chicken for almost 2 hours in the waiting room and being dismissed as just another crackhead a sharp nurse finally realized that I was in real distress.  They shot me up with morphine to reduce the pain...  

... and they found a bed for me.  I was hauled off to a CAT scan where they found a 1.2 cm kidney stone lodged in the ureter.  Oh, and BTW it wasn't comforting to be told that the pain was similar to that which a lady suffers when they have a baby.  (Why do they keep having them?)

So the fate was sealed:  surgery the following day to bust it up.  A whole day without water or food then on to surgery.

And right on time, the sun came up the next day and I was on my way to recovery and hopefully not experience this again.  Lots free advice I was given:  drink water, cran juice, etc.  Ok, I'll start right now.

Tech details:  Samsung Cell Phone S4; Natural light.  Processed in SnapSeed App.
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