My Greatest Achievement

Aid Station
On March 7th, 1969, I was officially relieved of my field duties and brought back to the Battalion Aid Station to work there. It was routine stuff, various medical ailments and injuries and a lot of dull tedious work assignments around the Aid Station. A few weeks after returning I was cleaning the Aid Station while some of the Senior Battalion officers were talking to the Doctor about the cost of the Medical supplies we were going through. A Major brought up the cost of Penicillin and wanted to know why we used so much. The Doctor said it was used for many infections, but the biggest use was to treat gonorrhea, commonly referred to as the Clap. The Major launched into a tirade about how much this cost and how there should be no time for the men to catch the Clap and how it had to Stop!!

LTC Smith, the Battalion commander, asked for suggestions as to how to cut the costs in this area and a Redneck Major whose name I can never remember recommended Article 15's and Courtsmartials for repeat offenders, which was the official Army line. I was off to the side shaking my head in disbelief when one of the Officers spotted me and asked if I had a better idea. Never having been bright enough to keep my mouth shut, I told him I did but he wouldn't like it.

The Problem

LTC Smith looked at me and said he wanted to hear what I thought. I told him that for as long as there was a U.S.Army, punishment to prevent the men from consorting with the women had been the policy and it had never stopped anyone yet. It would not work here either and it would not save a penny as you still had to treat the infected soldier while you punish him. The only way to solve the problem was to prevent the infection in the first place, and the way to do that was to clean up the women the men visited. Several of the Officers made comments about the U.S. Army not being Whoremasters, and I told them that it was up to them to fight the war and up to the Medical Corps to keep the troops healthy, and we should each do our job and let the other group do theirs. I quickly added that a few Medcaps to the surrounding villages and treatment of the on-base female workers would cut the VD rate in half at least.

The Colonel thought that was good, but my redneck Major friend wanted to know what to do about the other half. I said that was simple, provide a place with healthy girls to prevent the guys from going elsewhere where you had no control at all. The Colonel asked the Doctor what he thought of that idea and Dr. Adams said from a purely technical aspect it was the best idea he had heard yet. Someone said the Chaplains would raise hell over it, I asked if they thought the Chaplains preferred sending infected men home to their wives and girlfriends? The Major asked if I wanted to talk to the Chaplains about it, I'm sure he thought I'd chicken out. I asked what would happen if I convinced the Chaplains it was a good idea, the Colonel said if I could do that, we would give the idea a try. End of meeting.

The Solution

Since I had never gone to church while there and both Chaplains knew that, they were a little surprised when I asked for a meeting. I told them that it was not my place to make moral judgments about what the men did, that was their job. It was my job to keep the men healthy any way I could, and I explained my idea and why we should proceed. I must have turned 20 shades of green with embarrassment and it was obvious they were highly amused at my attempts to put things delicately for their benefit. But I presented the facts of failed punishment policies, lack of controlled environment, cost (2 shots per day at $6.00 each for 5 days was normal) and the problem of infected men returning home to infect their women, thus ruining their relationships. At the end they said they wanted to discuss it and they'd let me know. That was about 10AM. At lunch they told me they felt the health issue outweighed the moral dilemma they felt, and they would continue to preach abstinence but not object to our proposal. I was truly surprised.

Success!!!

I heard nothing more about it for several weeks and one day noticed a brick building being constructed not too far from the Aid Station.When asked, I was told it was a steam bath being constructed by a Vietnamese woman. Then I was told this was my idea. In the Aid station I was told there were some problems to be worked out. Dr. Adams said he wanted to inspect the girls once a week, but needed the proper equipment to do so. Supply had said they could not supply a all-male unit with a Vaginal Specula. No inspections, no girls. I took a trip to Dong Tam to the hospital where the nurses and Donut Dollies were treated and explained we were starting a new program of OB/GYN for the local women and what we needed. Took a while to convince them, but they finally produced a beat up used unit that they were intending to throw out. Problem solved! Next problem was to assign someone to do "Short arm" inspections on every man who bought a $5.00 ticket, that being the price for 1/2 hour with a girl. Everyone knew that was coming and ran for cover. If I wanted my idea to fly, I had to get someone to do it, so I said I'd do the first 2 weeks, but after that I expected everyone else to be assigned that job, just like any other. Lots of bitching about that, but that was the way it went down, more or less. I wound up doing 2-3 days per week for the next six weeks.

We had 17 girls working 6 days a week,15 would have sex, 2 young girls (about 16 or 17 ) would do rubdowns and massages. Steam bath was $2.00, massage was $3.00, sex was $5.00.
I truly believe that this was about the best thing I did in Nam. We cut the units VD rate by nearly 80%, and I feel really good about that.