The war was, on the surface, a patriotic and exciting phenomenon. Unconsciously, the idea of maybe dying, it was very complicated.
When you’re a soldier, and there’s any kind of shooting— We’d broadcast and I’d be on the radio. I give them coordinates. I’d start with Y, Tango, you know, Dodge, Easy, Over. Then I’d say, “Can you see the white church? Can you see the steeple, the white church? A little to the left of it. The Germans, go shoot them.” I would end up talking like that.
We were in a command car or a jeep, highly mobile. Less than a minute after we broadcast, the road was straddled with gunfire—bang, bang, bang, bang—big shells. They’d get radio coordinates and take the shot at where we just were.
Marc
Dealing day-to-day with the idea that you could get blown up must have driven you nuts.
Mel
It did. We talked to each other. Soldiers would talk to each other. There was a guy from Jersey City. He said, “You know, Mel, it’s like a newsreel. We’re in a newsreel.” I said, “You’re right.” I never forget it but you’re right, we think we’re in a newsreel. We don’t pay attention to body bags inside.
STEPHEN TOBOLOWSKY—ACTOR
There was a period of time for a couple years, I was doing the TV show Heroes. I was slowly losing my voice. I didn’t know how or why. It was scaring me because I’m an actor. I didn’t know what it was. Eventually it got to the point where I couldn’t talk. I went to the head of Cedars-Sinai, like head and neck and everything, and he said, “Well, you have a growth on your vocal cord,” and that was enough to make me piss my pants and I was terrified.
I went to see my brother in Dallas, who’s a doctor. He sent me to a friend of his who said, “You need surgery yesterday. Why have you not had surgery?” I had surgery. I couldn’t speak for like two months. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t sneeze, I couldn’t whisper. I had to write. When I was pissed off I had to write in red ink. I had no options but just to write. When I was recovering from this, I remember I was getting these dull headaches at the same time, so with the fact that I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t work, I had dull headaches, I naturally thought I had a brain tumor.
Yeah, so the doctor sent me to a head and neck specialist. The head and neck specialist did X-rays of me, a whole CAT scan of me and told me, “Well, you have advanced arthritis of the neck so bad that the spine of your neck is 180 degrees curved the absolutely wrong way. You have ossification of the vertebrae.” I’m going home thinking, “Not only can I not talk, but now I’m crippled! I’ve always been a healthy guy, why do I have this ossification of the neck?” Well, to recover from the throat surgery I was told to go somewhere where I could be quiet, so I thought I could go fishing. But that’s a bad idea because when you catch a fish, you scream, “Oh, shit!” and I can’t do that.
The other thing was to go horseback riding in Iceland, which I’d been to before.
Marc
Sure, that’s a common thing that people do when they’re stressed out. I’ve heard that horseback riding in Iceland is at the top of everyone’s list.
Stephen
Oh, it’s beautiful. You get on that horse and ride. My wife and I, we were riding to an active volcano, very close to the one that exploded.
Marc
Also, another nonstressful thing to do, to ride a horse directly into an active volcano. It’s all making sense, Stephen.
Stephen
The last day of the trek, I get up on the ridge of the volcano and a wind comes and lifts me and the horse off the ground and threw us! The head of the riding group ran over and I was getting back on my horse and he said, “Are you okay after the fall?” Then I said, “What fall?” He said, “Get off the horse.”
They drove me over to a little town and the woman said, “You know, I’m putting you in a neck brace. We’re sending you to Reykjavík to be CAT scanned.” They CAT scanned me there. I had a broken neck. The guy said, “Yeah, you’ve, you’ve fractured a vertebra.” They put me in one of those soft collars like people get when they have whiplash.
Marc
Or when they want to make money off a doctor in court.
Stephen
Yeah. I’m getting on the plane going back from Iceland to New York and there’s a guy there who happened to be a surgeon from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. He loved me from Deadwood and said, “Man, have you found out a way to get onto the plane without waiting with the collar?”
I said, “Well, actually, I just broke my neck here.”
This guy turned pale, and he said, “Are you kidding me?”
I said, “No, sir.”
He said, “Well, you are in the wrong collar. You could die on this flight. You have to be in a hard collar. This is not gonna keep your neck stable. You have to hold your neck the entire time you’re on the flight. Don’t pick up a bag, don’t move, don’t do anything.”
He said, “Do you have a head and neck specialist?” Voilà! I happened to have a head and neck specialist. Who in the world has a head and neck specialist? I had one who just did a whole series of X-rays on me, like, three weeks ago!
I said, “Yes, I have a head and neck specialist in Los Angeles.”
He said, “You go to that head and neck specialist immediately.”
I went back to New York holding my neck the entire way. I went from New York to LA holding my neck the entire way. I go to my head and neck specialist and he does another series of X-rays. He turns pale.
He said, “They misdiagnosed you in Iceland. You don’t have a broken vertebra. You have five broken vertebrae from C2 to C7. You have a fatal injury. Your C4 vertebra is crushed.” The same as Christopher Reeve.