Sorry for my absence as the VA assisted the military devise new dental tortures…

posted by Bill Arnett @ 2:31 PM Permalink

…ostensibly applied to provide relief this diabolically cruel method of inflicting unbearable pain grows evermore efficient in the hands of the masked men with shiny, metallic tools with curls, swirls, sharp points, wide, flat steel levers to rip the mouth asunder while keeping their subject anesthetized and unaware of the crushing pain until the "patient" comes out from under.

True story: The only person whom I ever told I was going to kill and quite literally meant it was a dentist.

I was on duty with a terrible tooth ache when my supervisor came by my post, noticed the swelling on the right side of my jaw, immediately relieved me from duty and, since it was almost 8am I was taken directly to the base dentist on an emergency basis.

This young Captain came in, looked, told me it was an impacted lower wisdom tooth. Then he jammed a hugh needle into my gum and squirted some awful "irrigation" fluid (despite my twisting, turning, and muffled cries of pain) then placed a chisel on the tooth raised a big ass mallet and told me,"You're going to feel some pressure here," and then whacked the chisel very hard and broke the tooth into about fifty splinters; it felt like he had torn my jaw right out of my face. He then spent about a half-hour pulling the splinters, put a couple of stitches in there and then hustled me out the door without a word about painkillers.

I bore the most incredible pain of my life for about an hour-and-a-half, got a ride back to the clinic, marched in to the Captain's office, sat down, pushed his paperwork to the side and leaned over his desk trying to get nose-to-nose with him. He got pissed, demanding to know what I wanted, threatening courts-martial, and THAT'S when I put myself in the most severe jeopardy of my career: I grabbed him by his lapels, pulled him up out of his chair, got nose-to-nose and very quietly told him that,"You ARE going to give me something for my pain you bastard or I will leave here, walk down to the armory (only a short distance), draw my weapons, and I will then return and KILL YOU, UNDERSTAND?

I didn't allow the Captain to move while his clerk called the Colonel in command of the dental unit. He came storming into the room yelling something about NOBODY threatening one of his dentists, saw the Captain, still in my grasp, and then the Colonel calmed himself as I began to explain. He came over, coaxed me into letting the Captain go, and then gently shoved me into a dental chair. He took a cursory look, turned to the Captain, obviously pissed, and asked him,"Did you do this work? And didn't put him under while you missed an inch of severed gum that should have been stitched, and THEN SENT HIM OUT WITH NOTHING FOR HIS PAIN?" The Captain that had started to regain his confidence, expecting the Colonel to back him at all cost kinda deflated real quick as he answered in the affirmative.

The Colonel sent the Captain to await him at his office, worked on me VERY gently for almost an hour, and then gave me all sorts of pain relievers, the best of which for me was codeine - except that codeine puts me way O.D. (Out Dere), so he gave me four days off, called my first sergeant and told him to assign "handlers" to watch out for me and to safeguard me, 'cause for those four days I could make the wrong turn in my own barracks and find myself hopelessly lost.

They followed me to the shower, to the chow hall, to the mail room, from my bunk to a nice sunny spot where the houseboys shining shoes and stuff could help watch me.

NO ONE anywhere along the chain of command, from dental commanders, to my first sergeant, commander, NCOIC, NO ONE ever breathed a single word about courts-martials or even non-judicial Article 15 charges being filed against me for this incident.

The Captain that so obviously butchered me turned out to be a reserve Captain, was written up in a career ending letter by the Colonel, and was shipped home no longer a reserve captain.

The above story is entirely true, no names have been changed to protect the innocent as no names were used and none were innocent.

Labels: dentist, mickey rourke, military tales, Torture