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BS: Vietnam Vet vs. COVID-19

keberoxu 12 Jul 20 - 02:06 PM
Rapparee 12 Jul 20 - 09:15 PM
keberoxu 14 Jul 20 - 08:10 AM
Rapparee 14 Jul 20 - 09:00 AM
keberoxu 14 Jul 20 - 09:42 AM
Stilly River Sage 14 Jul 20 - 10:04 AM
keberoxu 14 Jul 20 - 11:11 AM
Rapparee 14 Jul 20 - 08:55 PM
Jeri 14 Jul 20 - 09:23 PM
keberoxu 16 Jul 20 - 05:41 PM
Doug Chadwick 18 Jul 20 - 05:29 AM
keberoxu 18 Jul 20 - 11:49 AM
keberoxu 07 Sep 20 - 07:49 PM
keberoxu 02 Feb 25 - 09:13 AM
Stilly River Sage 02 Feb 25 - 11:04 AM
Donuel 02 Feb 25 - 03:08 PM

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Subject: Jesse Hankey is still alive and fighting
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Jul 20 - 02:06 PM

Report from Massachusett's Berkshire County and its newspaper,
the Berkshire Eagle.

When the coronavirus turned up in Western Massachusetts at the end of February 2020,
this case was reported in the papers,
with Jesse Hankey's name withheld, anonymous;
just that he was one of the first to come down with the virus
and was fighting for his life in the hospital.

And I have wondered, from that day to this,
if he was amongst the dead or the living.
Well, he's still alive.
Some reported facts:

When one of his grown sons brought him to the urgent care center,
wanting medical attention,
they gave him chest x-rays, diagnosed maybe-pneumonia,
and sent him home.

Between March 3 and March 6, he could not even eat,
and his grown son brought him to ... a different hospital, the big one.

A life-long native and resident of the small but very busy town of Great Barrington (lots of comings and goings there),
Jesse Hankey had done no traveling recently.
He did not bring COVID-19 back from anyplace else --
the coronavirus came to him.

Admission to Berkshire Medical Center Hospital in Pittsfield, March 6.
Put on a ventilator, March 7. Settled into Intensive Care unit.
The following week, Jesse Hankey was tested three separate times;
after the third test,
confirmed positive fo COVID-19.

His family could not visit him in ICU.
Kidney failure was treated with dialysis.
When death was no longer imminent,
he was "weaned" off of the breathing machine,
stepped down from ICU,
and settled into a hospital room;
he still had a tracheotomy tube,
and need a voice box in order to talk.

When he did talk, he said the same thing that he had said
back in the ER, before being put on the ventilator:
"I'm not ready to die."

In Vietnam,
Jesse Hankey was a Marine Corps machine gunner.

He prefers the Yankees to the Red Sox.

After some four months in hospital,
on June 29,
Jesse Hankey was transferred from Berkshire Medical Center to
Hillcrest Commons Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.
Doctors removed his tracheotomy tube on July 9.
He has to regain some muscular strength
before he can go home.
(Chronic conditions: diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis.)

The family, along with the town of Great Barrington,
wants to celebrate when
Jesse Hankey finally comes home.


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Subject: RE: BS: Vietnam Vet vs. COVID-19
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Jul 20 - 09:15 PM

They should. Big one. Like he didn't get when he DEROSed.


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Subject: RE: BS: Vietnam Vet vs. COVID-19
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Jul 20 - 08:10 AM

Rapparee, or any other vets out there,
what is DEROS?

D is for Discharge -- ?


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Subject: RE: BS: Vietnam Vet vs. COVID-19
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Jul 20 - 09:00 AM

Date Estimated Rotation Over Seas. The date you're slated to go home. (The last two letters are sometime said to mean "Outa Sh*t.")   Used as "So, when do you DEROS?" or "Bill? He DEROSed outa here a month ago." It could mean "When do you leave the Real World for where ever you're going?" but it's only used about returning tot he Land of the Big PX.


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Subject: RE: BS: Vietnam Vet vs. COVID-19
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Jul 20 - 09:42 AM

Sorry I have to ask this, Rapparee,
but what is
PX ?


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Subject: RE: BS: Vietnam Vet vs. COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jul 20 - 10:04 AM

Company Store.


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Subject: RE: BS: Vietnam Vet vs. COVID-19
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Jul 20 - 11:11 AM

There is more to this story than
the Berkshire Eagle related.
I just attempted an online search to see
if any more news about the veteran, Jesse Hankey, were out.

And what did I find?
In another Berkshire County periodical/online site,
an obituary notice for
the Friday, April 10, 2020 death
of Helen Keefner Hankey, age 91, from coronavirus.
She is Jesse Hankey's mother,
and when she died,
her son was in a different hospital, fighting for his life.

The notice, posted on April 15, 2020 [death and taxes!], states:
"It is with deepest regret that
the funeral services for Helen C. Hankey were private
out of concern for the health and safety
of her friends and family
due to the threat of coronavirus."

Turns out that her son is "Jesse W. Hankey, Jr.,"
named for his father who died over twenty-five years ago.

"Helen's greatest joy was when she was with her family."
She must have been interceding something fierce for her son
across the threshold of life and death, to help keep him alive.


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Subject: RE: BS: Vietnam Vet vs. COVID-19
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Jul 20 - 08:55 PM

PX.

The Army and Air Force call it the Post Exchange (or PX). The Marines, Navy, and Coast Guard call it the Base Exchange (BX). It evolved from the 19th Century "Sutler's Stores" that supplied (for a price!) things those in the military needed but were not supplied by the government -- things like razors, shaving soap, additional underwear, beer, writing paper, pens and pencils, etc. It still does, but nowadays includes everything from computers to condoms to HUNTING rifles (the government supplies the other sort). Additional uniforms and civilian clothes are also sold, so are household appliances.

Commissaries sell food and sometimes liquor, beer and wine.

These places do have sales and such just like "regular" stores, otherwise the prices are similar. The befit I (yes, I could shop there) and active duty people would enjoy is no sales tax -- not enough to make me drive three or more hours to the closest ones.


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Subject: RE: BS: Vietnam Vet vs. COVID-19
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Jul 20 - 09:23 PM

It's BX in the Air Force. It's like Target. Makeup, household items like pots/pans/slow cookers. I haven't been in one for years.


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Subject: RE: BS: Vietnam Vet vs. COVID-19
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 05:41 PM

More info on Vietnam vet and Marine Jesse W. Hankey, Jr.,
from newspaper archives online.

Basic training at Camp LeJeune.
After serving in Vietnam, he attended
a 'service school' in Okinawa.
By the time he left the Marines he was a Lance Corporal.
His first marriage was just before serving in Vietnam,
resulting, eventually, in two sons,
who are alive today with families of their own.

Their mother, when she died, was listed by her maiden name,
and although her two sons were named in her obituary,
there was no mention whatever, dead or alive,
of their (still-living) father.

Jesse Hankey is currently re-married, although
I could not locate any public notice about a church wedding.
It is the second marriage for his present wife, as well.


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Subject: RE: BS: Vietnam Vet vs. COVID-19
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 05:29 AM

keberoxu,
Having linked to the 'human interest' story in the Berkshire Eagle, what is the purpose of posting further details of this gentleman's life here on Mudcat? You are begining to sound like a stalker.

DC


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Subject: RE: BS: Vietnam Vet vs. COVID-19
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 11:49 AM

Not the first time that has been said of me here,
and usually the other person is correct and I am wrong.

I will leave it to others' judgment if my most recent post
ought to be deleted.
I guess there is no reasonable excuse for crossing that boundary.
It is true that I do get enthusiastic about scholarship and investigation.


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Subject: RE: BS: Vietnam Vet vs. COVID-19
From: keberoxu
Date: 07 Sep 20 - 07:49 PM

He made it home.

Jesse Hankey was signed off at the rehabilitation center and escorted back to Great Barrington, and his home, the Friday of the Labor Day holiday weekend.

Photographs reveal that he has experienced considerable weight loss. He has an oxygen tank on his person.

From his discharge to his Great Barrington home,
Jesse Hankey had a police escort,
and I don't know how many motorcycles
(he owns three if I recall right).

A turnout of some fifty people waving American flags greeted his arrival.

He thanks everyone for their prayers
and says he is most thankful to be sitting in his own chair
in his living room with his family around him.


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Subject: RE: BS: Vietnam Vet vs. COVID-19
From: keberoxu
Date: 02 Feb 25 - 09:13 AM

The inevitable outcome has happened.
On Thursday, January 30, Jesse Hankey died in hospital.
He lasted four-years-plus
after being released from the hospital following treatment for COVID.

In those intervening four years,
he resumed playing cribbage and enjoyed
taking his pontoon out on the lake.

He will be buried with full military honors.


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Subject: RE: BS: Vietnam Vet vs. COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Feb 25 - 11:04 AM

Call it a case history rather than stalking. It serves as a reminder of the wide range of the effects of COVID. We won't get accurate numbers about rates of infection from here on out, but the WHO reports that as of January 19, 2025, the previous 28 days showed 101,478 cases REPORTED TO THEM, most of them in Russia. The most active area it is hitting is in northern Europe. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) there were 445 deaths in the US in the week preceding January 12, 2025. So the number of souls lost in the shocking airplane/helicopter collision last week was a fraction of those lost weekly. But COVID is normalized so those deaths are no longer reported, one has to look for and extrapolate the numbers.

RIP Mr. Hankey.


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Subject: RE: BS: Vietnam Vet vs. COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Feb 25 - 03:08 PM

Is the PX inflation-proof? Stuff there seemed almost half-price.


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