A Minnesota PBS Initiative
Broken Angel
Ray Bonnabeau was a member of Chapter 320, Vietnam Veterans of America (the St. Paul Chapter). He also was the Head of surgery at the MN VA and a key administrator, also a Senior Officer in the Army Reserve, for all that when he was at our meetings he was just another guy, but if he heard of a GI having difficulty with the VA he was in your corner till it was resolved. He died suddenly a few years ago, and we still miss his company
Photo courtesy of Star Tribune and DML.
2 March 2011
"Doc" Bonnabeau, Combat Surgeon, is gone from us. Ray had a lifetime of achievement. He retired a Major General in the US Army Medical Corps, multiple PHD, author of hundreds of articles, eminent medical researcher, Antarctic Explorer, VA administrator and Veterans Advocate, Papal Knight, accomplished actor, and a loving husband and father. For all of us who knew him personally a good friend and companion.
For some hundreds of others, who may never have known his name he was the reason they lived out their lives, for they served and suffered in I (eye) Corps, Republic of Vietnam. One very bad day or night, their lives were given into his capable hands.
"Doc" Bonnabeau was the Chief Surgeon of the 95th Evacuation Hospital, and if you made it from the battalion aid station to the 95th, Ray and his Surgical team was your last best chance.
On the best of days we may not save everyone in our care. On bad days we may not even save most of them. On the worst of days we may not be able to save anyone. But every day we will do everything we are capable of to save everyone we can.
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I Corps was tough. It was tough on all who served there. It was tough on all who lived there. It was tough for any who fought there, American, ARVN, NVA or VC.
A quarter of the US personnel in Vietnam served there, fifty percent of the casualties of that war occurred there. It was a special kind of hell for the men and women of the Naval Support Activity Hospital and the 95th Evacuation Hospital outside DaNang.
There were no slow days or quiet nights at NSA or China Beach. Every Chopper that arrived had blood on the skids, every ambulance through the gates was full of screams, the Intensive Care Ward was always in crisis.
Civilians waited stoically at the gates holding broken children, or damaged family members. Incoming rockets and mortar rounds, firefights on the perimeter or a psychotic patient with a loaded weapon. All this could happen in one 24 hour period with no guarantee that it wouldn't happen again tomorrow, or in the next hour, and it often did.
If and when they had time off these medical personnel went out to the civilian hospitals, the orphanages and the villages and did what they could there. These Corpsmen, Medics, Nurses and Doctors often fell asleep sitting in front of uneaten meals in the mess halls or in still bloody smocks on their bunks.
Nothing shut down the operating rooms. When the alert sirens went off they put on flack jackets, when the lights went out they worked by flashlight, when the explosions came closer they zipped their flack jackets up and put on their helmets. When it got real close the OR teams would instinctively move closer to the operating table forming a protective circle around the patient. The work went on, cutting, probing, tying off arteries, removing deadly metal, splintered bones, dirt, then reconnecting burned and shredded tissue. Then on to the next one.
You need a lot of skill to be a surgeon, you need to have a steady hand, exceptional power of concentration, confidence in your team, your training and yourself. You have to be brutally honest, especially with yourself, when you know there is something you cannot do, and humble when you do something you thought could not be done. To be a combat Surgeon requires all this and more. Combat medical personnel are very much aware that at any time they can become the patient, and they have to learn to live with this dark possibility and not let it overcome their ability to do their work.
Ray Bonnabeau was the chief surgeon in a very tough place at a very bad time. Thousands of casualties passed through the 95th. Hundreds were operated on, scores of those were too damaged to be saved, but everything that could be done was. Many arrived unconscious, went straight to the operating room, and regained consciousness in midair over the Pacific, alive because they made it to the 95th and into the hands of those who kept them that way.
Ray spent his whole life doing everything he could for us. He saved a lot of lives, and all our lives were made better for having been in his presence.
After he was there awhile he would brief all the new Operating Room personnel in the unit. He would tell them.
"On the best of days we may not save everyone in our care. On bad days we may not even save most of them. On the worst of days we may not be able to save anyone, but every day we will do everything we are capable of, to save everyone we can".
Ray spent his whole life doing everything he could for us. He saved a lot of lives, and all our lives were made better for having been in his presence
Thanks for everything doc.
Tom Dunne
Command Sergeant Major (ret.)
I Corps RVN 67-70
66 9th Street East #2406
St Paul, MN 55101
Biographical Details
Submitted From: St. Paul, MN
Primary Location During Vietnam: Da Nang, DMZ, Vietnam 
Story Subject: Memorial
Story Themes: 95th Evacuation Hospital, Army, Combat, Da Nang, Death and Loss, Demilitarized Zone, DMZ, Eye Corps, I Corps, Medical Personnel, Memorial, Ray Bonnabeau, Read, Relationships, Saint Paul, St Paul, The VA, Thomas Dunne, Vietnam Veterans of America, VVA Chapter 320
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