Eugene Gallant escaped Korea unharmed. Later, he dropped loaded containers of fuel from an airplane in Vietnam while gunfire ascended from the ground.
You think heart disease could keep this guy from celebrating one more Veterans Day? Not likely.
“I did air drops in ‘Nam for 18 friggin’ months. There were bullets coming up through the floor of the plane,” Gallant recalled Wednesday from his home in Mexico. “One direct hit on one of those bags – and we were inside an atom bomb.”
Gallant didn’t realize his heart was a time bomb. Then a neighbor found him sitting in his car this year, the morning of March 3. He was in the early stages of a heart attack.
War is hell, but the last eight months of this retired Marine Corps gunnery sergeant’s life haven’t been nirvana. Gallant underwent emergency triple-bypass surgery and suffered a stroke, which is one risk of the operation.
During his recovery, Gallant, who turned 69 on Oct. 1, experienced heart failure on four occasions. Three times, a LifeFlight helicopter rushed him to the cardiac units at hospitals in Portland and Lewiston.
The brothers served
“I left Rumford with tubes down my throat so they could fly me there and pull me out it,” Gallant said with typical matter-of-factness.
And so, today, he thanks them, especially LifeFlight, Med-Care Ambulance Service, Rumford Hospital and Central Maine Medical Center.
Surgeons, nurses, cooks and chaplains.
He thanks them all, when it should be us thanking him, profusely.
The thread of civic duty connecting Gallant’s family puts most of us to shame.
Somewhere in the Mexico Town Office hangs a plaque dedicated to the five Gallant brethren. One joined the Navy. Three more enlisted in the Army. At 17, Eugene chose the Marines, and his work ethic was an ideal fit.
As a third-grader, Gallant had worked in the kitchen at the bustling Mexico Chicken Coop restaurant. Asked why he worked so young, he replied, “That was what you did. You worked.”
In high school, he helped build the bridge that still crosses the Androscoggin River and connects Mexico with neighboring Rumford.
“My dad signed the papers with me in Lewiston and I left in January 1953 for Parris Island,” Gallant said. “It wasn’t long before I said, I’ve found me a home. Three meals a day and a roof over my head.’ I stayed there and did what I was told.”
Eugene served a total of three years in Korea and Vietnam without serious injury, but he says many friends who earned their Purple Hearts “had both arms and legs blown off.”
His brother, Army Staff Sgt. Roger Paul Gallant, paid the mightiest toll.
“He’s on that wall,” Gallant said, referring to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. “He left a wife and two kids in Georgia.”
Still giving thanks
Gallant’s pride translates to disdain for the current political climate.
He jokes that the debate about presidential candidates’ military service nearly gave him another heart attack.
“My whole life has been a challenge,” Gallant said. “I retired after 21 years. I did my time. That’s more than I can say for some people in authority today.”
So, who’d he vote for?
“I cast an absentee ballot, and my neighbor can vouch for this because he had to help me read some of the questions on the ballot,” said Gallant. “I wrote in Elmer Fudd and Mickey Mouse.”
His humor intact, Gallant relishes his 104th day of freedom from hospitals on this anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I.
He takes dozens of pills each day. Wears a Medic Alert button that would sound an alarm at Med-Care and prompt a dispatcher to send help immediately. Receives home health care three times a week. Gets oxygen through a 25-foot tube so he doesn’t have to carry a tank around the house.
And counts his blessings.
“I’m grateful I’m still alive,” he said. “(Wednesday) was the Marine Corps birthday. I called my son, John, in Florida. He also was in the Marines, so we wished each other happy birthday.”
Happy belated birthday, Sgt. Gallant. Enjoy every minute of this Veterans Day, too.
Oh, one more thing. Thanks.
Kalle Oakes is the Sun Journal’s columnist. His e-mail is koakes@sunjournal.com.
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