November 12, 2001 --
About 33 million men and women have worn the United States uniform
since the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
A handful are proud to have fought in
two wars, say, World War II and Korea - or maybe Vietnam and Desert
Storm.
But perhaps only one can say he served
in all four - and that's Dr. Victor Herbert, an ex-paratrooper and
Green Beret whose military career spanned 47 years.
Herbert, 74, a member of the hematology
staff at the Veterans Administration Bronx Medical Center, first
answered the call in 1944, at age 17, as a member of the 82nd
Airborne Division.
"I'm half-Jewish, and I decided I
wanted to get Hitler before he killed all the Jews," said
Herbert.
As a medic, he later served with the
101st "Screaming Eagles" paratroopers in Korea (1952-54)
and with the Green Beret Special Forces in Vietnam (1965-66).
Herbert said he was responsible for the
well-being of 10 paratroopers at a time - they leaped out of the
portal together in bang-bang style.
"We called it a 'string,' "
Herbert said. "There could be three strings on a plane. You
went out one right after another. They trained you to never look
down when you were coming out, because you'd freeze. You always
jumped looking straight ahead."
Planes would fly as low as 600 to 800
feet, giving paratroopers about 20 seconds in the air as they lazily
drifted to the combat zone - sitting ducks for the enemy.
"The longer you're up there, the
more time the enemy has to shoot at you, so we came in as low as we
could," said Herbert, who often packed more than 50 pounds of
equipment, in addition to his M-1 carbine.
The true test of the man came during
Operation Desert Shield, the buildup before Desert Storm, when
Herbert, now a doctor, called in a few markers and jumped for the
final time on Jan. 10, 1991 - at age 64.
Getting reactivated was surprisingly
easy. Herbert approached a former medical student of his for whom he
had pulled strings decades earlier at Harvard - Louis Sullivan, who
by then had become George Bush's secretary of Health and Human
Services.
"I said, 'Look, Lou, I want to go
back on active duty, but they say I'm too old,' " said Herbert,
who is also on the faculty at Mount Sinai.
" 'Could you ask the president to
order the Defense Department to activate me? You owe me one.' "
Sullivan, president of the Morehouse
College School of Medicine in Atlanta today, recalled the incident.
"I contacted the assistant
secretary of the Department of Defense and informed him of Dr.
Herbert's interest," Sullivan said. "They were able to
work it out."
Herbert, who hadn't jumped in 10 years,
learned that sometimes, people should be careful of what they ask
for. The jump, he conceded, didn't go precisely as he had imagined.
"I cracked my spine," said
Herbert, who was partially paralyzed but wouldn't become
wheelchair-bound until five years later.
"You're supposed to roll over on
your side so the whole body will take the brunt, but I hit the
ground standing up. I knew what to do. I just didn't have the reflex
speed."
Herbert returned to civilian life after
being deactivated for the fourth and final time in March 1991.
Herbert is gung-ho for the troops now
stationed in and around Afghanistan. He wants the operation to be
short and sweet - but he doesn't want any homecoming parade until
the job is completely done.
"We've got to wipe out the Taliban
- wherever it is - before it wipes us out," he said.
"Once the Taliban is overthrown,
once a democratic government is installed under U.N. auspices and
all the tribes are represented, then we can get out."
