Vet aids birds, others
<p>Dull, a Vietnam veteran who still wears his dog tags, adores “Cat Ballou” his Green-Winged Macaw. The tags were re-issued, as his original tags were stolen from his pickup.</p>
Kindly Vietnam vet helps animals
Vietnam War veteran Wendell Dull of the Third Battalion struggles physically throughout each day in chronic pain, yet he finds the strength to heal the hurts of injured animals.
Dull, 57, recounts a past riddled with adversities. However, he consistently lives his life selflessly.
“I’m nobody special,” Dull said. “Maybe some people will read my story, and it will do them some good.”
Born in 1953 the eldest child to a family in Churchville, Va., Dull has four younger sisters and a brother now deceased.
Dull’s father left the family before his seventh birthday. The following year at the age of 8, Dull’s mother sent him to the Patrick Henry’s Plantation for Boys.
“My mom said she couldn’t feed me anymore,” Dull said. “She gave me up for adoption and the plantation was about 100 miles away from my home.”
Dull spent about 10 years at the plantation before entering the U.S. Marine Corps boot camp at Paris Island, S.C. in 1971 at the age of 17.
“After boot camp I was sent directly to Que Son in South Vietnam with 15,000 other guys,” Dull said.
Stationed in a non-combat zone, Dull served as a cook and a Third LAAM (Light Anti-aircraft Missile maintenance).
“We ate pretty good on the base,” Dull said. “We ate C-Rats when we were out in the field for 10 to 12 days.”
Dull chuckled when he explained the difference between C-Rats and “sea rats.” The C-Rations, he added, were leftover from World War II.
“There were worms and things in the food we had to pick out,” Dull said. “When we got hungry and tired of the C-Rats we would eat a monkey, kind of tasted like veal.”
Most of the marines Dull served with in Vietnam did not make it out alive.
“We (marines) came back wounded and busted,” Dull said. “We have memories we will never share.
“They don’t have a right to our memories — they could never understand them,” Dull said.
Despite experiencing only the end of the war, Dull admits he saw the results of the war clearly.
Returning to the States in 1975, Dull served another four years and was stationed throughout the U.S.
After the war, Dull found it extremely difficult to find work and ways to fit in to this “new world.”
However, Dull knew he had a son that was born during his time away.
“I knew I had to do what it took to make ends meet.” Dull said. “I got married, adopted my wife’s two sons and we had another together — a total of four sons.”
In 1982, Dull met a zoologist, specializing in avian studies, named Scott McDonald in Marshfield, Wis.
“I always wanted to know more about birds and I started working with McDonald,” Dull said.
At one point in Dull’s work with birds, he cared for more than 120 pairs and hand-fed as many as 300 after they were hatched before they were sold.
For years, Dull added various jobs to his trade skills. Working in a slaughterhouse for six years, he would butcher as many as 1,800 head of beef and 6,000 hogs a day.
While driving semi-trucks for 17 years, Dull would sometimes travel through Montana and fell in love with Libby. However, before he would get the opportunity to move to Libby he would encounter a misfortune — rendering him crippled and in chronic pain for the remainder of his days.
“While driving a classic Porsche belonging to my boss at the time, a semi-truck drove over the top of me,” Dull said. “It took them four hours with the Jaws-of-Life to get me out — my lower back was shattered.”
Hunched over tables, difficulty in sitting and standing for long periods of time, Dull cannot live without two devices surgically implanted in his abdomen.
As he rapped on the two box shapes beneath the skin on his stomach, Dull explained one administers drips of morphine intermittently on his spine to control the pain and the other send electrical impulses to shock his spine so he can move.
“The morphine controls only 50 percent of the pain,” Dull said.
In all his humility and humble disposition, Dull continues to think about other’s needs.
Dull met his love “Ginger” of 15 years, who eight years ago was stricken with lung cancer. To get the treatment she needed, Dull and Ginger sold everything.
“Human life is more important than possessions,” Dull said. “We have nothing now and live like this. We saved her and I would do it all over again.”
Dull will continue to help injured animals individuals bring to him. Recently he reset a crow’s dislocated wing and currently cares for “one eye” the homeless cat.