Saving is at the core of Master’s existence

Bernard Master cannot unsee what he saw. Bodies blown to bits. Desperation in the eyes of the dying. The Viet Cong breaching the U.S. perimeter in a 1968 battle near Khe Sanh in South Vietnam.

“We were sitting ducks, attacked by an NVA regiment,” Master said Tuesday, reliving the fury in the stillness of his living room at his Worthington home. “They came with full force. It was hand-to-hand fighting. We had all this concertina (razor) wire and they came through it. They’d throw a body on the wire, one of

their dead, and just run over them to get to you.”

Death was everywhere, but Master had no time for it. As an Army battalion surgeon, he focused on extending life.

“That’s how I could do my job,” he said. “I’m a saver.”

Master, 78, sees a bridge between the back and forth battles of Vietnam and the serve and volley of tennis, the sport that has captivated him for 40 years. In both cases, the retired physician concentrated on

keeping things alive: soldiers in Vietnam, tennis in Columbus.

“It’s my fabric,” he said, explaining how his need to heal connects with a patriotism borne from his war experiences and quest to make and keep Americans healthy.

“I get home from Vietnam and am shocked to see all these fatties walking around,” he said, recalling his reaction to returning to a nation of mostly out-of-shape couch potatoes. “As a nation, we were unprepared for an attack on our country. Master

Except for the armed forces, civilian life was cushy with a fast-food mentality.”

Master, who practiced medicine for 40 years in the Short North, quickly became hooked on tennis, which eventually led to him sponsoring the Bernard Master Doubles Classic in 1978. The two-day tournament, held July 13-14 at the Elysium Tennis Club in Dublin, is the longest continuous-running tennis tournament in Ohio.

Master did not save tennis in Columbus, but without him, the sport would not be as healthy. And the goal has always been to have it thrive, not just survive.

“I want to keep it alive, and more,” he said. “I want to reach out into the community and bring everybody (to tennis). Not just the country-clubbers, but also the city park guys. And I want to help young people achieve their potential.”

If that sounds like a gee-whiz Jimmy Stewart speech, know that Master brings a decidedly “of the people” approach to projects. With tennis, he genuinely wants the sport to model his conviction that people are created equal.

“I believe the only way we can rise and succeed as the greatest power on earth is if every segment of our society rises together,” he said. “That’s why I took over this tournament in 1978, because I saw the democratization of the sport, where everybody could play in my tournament.”

Born in Philadelphia, Master embodies the dichotomy of brotherly love and don’t-messwith-me determination.

“We’re not afraid of anything,” he said of Philly folk.

Not even of tending to the wounded as rocket fire rattles overhead.

“The whole country of Vietnam was the front lines,” he said. “But there were shooting front lines and then the rears.”

Master served on both, overseeing a rotation of 33 medics who were first responders to the wounded. He witnessed gallantry play out amid the gore.

“I still have a letter written by my daughter’s neighbor. He didn’t serve, but wrote me, saying, ‘Dear Bernie, thank you for keeping untold names off the (Vietnam Veterans Memorial) wall.’ That was my reward, my medal and my medics’ medal.”

Master paused before reliving another war moment.

“The first week I got there we got rocketed and I was eating dirt,” he said. “I’m thinking, ‘I’m a doctor. What am I doing here?’”

Saving. What else?