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Two meetings, 50 years apart, one in an operating room in Vietnam; the second in an emotional reunion captured for television. And in between the two: a bloody battle, another surgery patient and a famous war photo of the Tet Offensive at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.
The first encounter occurred Dec. 30, 1967, when U.S. Army surgeon and SVS member Dr. Mayer Katz operated on a wounded 21-year-old soldier from Minnesota, Roger Wagner. Among Wagner’s injuries was a torn artery; Dr. Katz performed a femoral popliteal bypass, after the first doctor wanted to amputate.
The reunion between the patient and the doctor who saved his life will be televised Nov. 13 on the PBS show “We’ll Meet Again,” which recounts pivotal moments that change lives. Wagner, after watching the first season of the show last year, sought the reunion to thank the doctor who saved his life.
A Round-about Reunion: The reunion came about in a round-about way, because of a battle, a book, a photograph and Dr. Katz’s own careful notes of the cases he saw in Vietnam.
Soldier A.B. Grantham and three fellow soldiers were wounded Feb. 17, 1968, during a bloody battle in Hue waged during the Tet Offensive. He took a direct hit in the chest; his quick-thinking fellow soldiers stuffed the chest wound, with the cellophane from a pack of Lucky Strikes and wrapped the wound with bandages. Then the Marines knocked out a door and used it as a stretcher to carry him to a tank carrying other wounded, carefully placing him on his side so he essentially wouldn’t drown in his own blood from the wound.
John Olson, a young photographer for the Stars and Stripes military publication, snapped a photo of the scene, frequently known as “Marines on a Tank.” The photo, published across two pages in Life magazine, is just one of the many Vietnam combat photos for which Olson is known.
Dr. Katz put Grantham back together again, just one of many surgeries and not particularly memorable. “My last notation was ‘AE in the a.m. — Air Evac in the morning,’” said Dr. Katz.
Wagner’s Surgery: Roger Wagner was injured Dec. 30, 1967, while – believe it not – practicing shooting weapons. He and his group of soldiers were clerks who occasionally pulled guard duty, but were unfamiliar with the unit’s weapons. Concerned about being shot, they went out to practice using their rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers. However, they were near the jungle and “heard little pops – return fire,” he said. He said Roger told his fellow soldiers, ‘I have a funny feeling in my left thigh. I can’t feel my foot.’“
The first doctor who examined Wagner wanted to amputate his leg, said Dr. Katz. “I’d had a lot of experience with arteries because of my residency program at Boston City Hospital. So I looked at him and took him in. I did a fem-pop bypass and in a few days, I sent him out (to another hospital).”
Dr. Katz performed a number of surgeries that day and never really had the chance to talk with Wagner — who had gone into surgery thinking he was going to lose his leg.
The connection: In 2017, author Mark Bowden followed up his “Black Hawk Down” best-seller with “Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam.” The book includes a chapter that concentrated on A.B. Grantham and his experiences there and discusses (and shows) the famous tank picture. Reading the book and thinking Grantham’s name sounded familiar, Dr. Katz checked his logbook from nearly five decades before, and came across the entry for the soldier, then an 18-year-old from Alabama.
The chain of coincidences from the past continued early this year, when an exhibit of John Olson’s photographs of the Hue battle opened in the Newseum in Washington, D.C. “The Marines and Tet: The Battle That Changed the Vietnam War” featured 20 large-format photographs from the three days Olson spent with the Marines during the battle. They included “Marines on a Tank” as well as one of Dr. Katz from his Vietnam days. “I looked a little different,” Dr. Katz noted wryly.
He visited the exhibit and so did Roger Wagner, who saw the picture of Katz and thought he was the man who had once saved his life. “He had been looking for me all these years,” said Dr. Katz. Wagner apparently remembered “Katz,” but “ ‘Katz’ is kind of like ‘Jones’ for Jewish people.”
Wagner contacted officials from the “We’ll Meet Again” television show, and representatives “dug me up,” said Dr. Katz. They wanted proof, which Dr. Katz provided in the form of the logbooks. “I had the op notes, the discharge summary, everything.” (Help was provided via the Vietnam Vascular Registry, as well, which was created by another SVS member, Dr. Norman Rich.)
The aftermath: Knowing that Wagner’s leg had almost been amputated, Dr. Katz said, he asked one of the show’s representatives, “I know you can’t tell me how he did, but when he walks around, does he have one leg or two?” She, of course, refused him the information. (And this story won’t include the information until after the show airs Nov. 13.)
Dr. Katz had photographed some of his operations in Vietnam, including this one. “Gunshot wound, arterial injury, bypass graft and the incision,” he noted, adding, “and I got to see what he looks like now.”
While he was being filmed on camera, Dr. Katz said in some embarrassment, he became very emotional. “I kept thinking, my gosh, it’s 50 years later. Look what we accomplished,” Dr. Katz said. “I got emotional. Then (producer and reporter) Ann Curry asked me how I felt and that only made me worse.”
Wagner filled Dr. Katz in on the full life he has led since Vietnam — college, a career as a professional photographer, his family.
And, Dr. Katz, said he was able to get a reconfigured picture of the graft from 50 years ago and a picture of that same graft today. “I couldn’t believe 50 years later it’s still working,” he said. “It’s kind of a tribute to the vein bypass.”