:biggrin5:Had the amazing privilege tonight of shaking hands with and giving a hug to Don Wipple. He fought in the battle of Iwo Jima. He still speaks at local schools and events. The book "More than 36 days" authored by Caren Barrela and the movie "Final Return to Iwo Jima", a documentary, are of Don. And what is so cool is, he lives in my neighborhood!:biggrin5:
I had to run the immunization injector gauntlet one of my first days. I think there were 2 or 3 inoculators (as we called them) on each side of the line, paired up, and each individual just got hit by whichever gun(s) had whatever juice he supposedly needed. I don't know, seemed pretty random to me... Anyway, the guy 2 in front of me got one injection in one arm, stepped up to the next pair of inoculaters and just as they both pulled the trigger almost simultaneously he passed out and dropped. Got a matching set of those little gashes, one on each arm. This annoyed those running the show and in the few seconds it took to prop the guy up in a chair so they could restart the gauntlet the guy behind me passed out from the blood. That's when I realized that looking better than the rest of the rabble was going to be a piece of cake.
This was all before the problems associated with aids.... I'm guessing they moved away from this technology if there is the chance that blood will be sprayed....
I'm not sure, but from the assembly line process I'm hearing, I'm not 100% sure that they were even switching needles... Or was the compressed air blowing the vaccine through the skin? BTW: The 'fire the vaccine through the skin' approach has made it to commercial use. My wife and I got a flu vaccine a few years ago from a device where they loaded the vaccine vial (single dose) into a contraption, cocked it (requiring a wall mounted device with a long handle for leverage), and fired it into your arm with no needle involved. Unfortunately, it left a large, tender lump on both of us at the injection site that stayed (and hurt) for a month. Screw that... I'm liking needles more and more!
I live near Ft Jackson SC and I have had the privilege of talking to few MOH winners. One of them lived on my street and we (MP CO) got him to be our guest speaker at the MP Ball....He passed on a few years ago along with another MOH winner that I knew. RIP
All this brings back thoughts of that first week at Ft. Dix. At the time all I could think of was have I made a big mistake? But looking back I wouldn't have missed it for anything.
After returning home from an eight week all expense paid '"summer vacation" at Fort Riley, my Dad asked me what I thought of the "adventure" and the letters FTA immediately came to mind. When asked what I had learned I said "ain't never gonna live in Kansas you can't get no drink nowhere without joining a club." (that was uttered in my then just acquired Kansas accent) I've eaten that crow medium well once a year since then. Pulling KP and guard duty back to back the second day convinced me too that a terrible mistake had been made. But it all worked out-seven years later.
HaHa, my dad was stationed at Fort Riley with the 4th Calvary, "The Quarter Horses", and deployed from there to Vietnam. I was born there, actually Junction City. I drove through there once on one of the family's cross country cruises to a new duty station.
Sure do, those things always drew blood. Stuff like that always made me fell like I was part of some experiment. I'd always wonder what the side effect was going to be.:nonod:
They are air powered but don't inject air into your bloodstream, just liquid. The ones on a diesel are operated by the camshaft, they combine the injector with a high pressure fuel pump. Dave
:cornut: Come on now Dave, if there were diesel ones in the 60's and early 70's then the Army would have used them on us.:lol::lol::lol: Jason
Thinking back on it, we got a heck of a lot of shots. I wounder how many were needed and how many were experimental, just to see what they did to us. Having worked at Ft Detrick, I now know they did do that back then.
:cornut: Over in desert storm this Medical Service Corps type comes around with a big pill for everyone as protection against biological agents. I asked about the research, mechanism of action, contraindications and adverse reactions and he looked like a deer caught in the head lights. "Uh well all of that hasn't been released yet." Right into the trash can immediately. :lol::lol: Jason
Got a dilemma. Together We Served sent out a letter with an interview of a former Navy guy. The guy states he joined up in '72 and that his first command out of boot was the USS Halsey (DLG-23) at Bath,ME (Bath Iron Works) and that he is a plank owner. That means he was a member of the commissioning crew. The builder of the Halsey was the San Francisco Naval Shipyard and she was commissioned in 1963 near 10 years before the guy enlisted. Should I say something to the web staff or just let it go? That kind of stuff just annoys the heck out of me. There are a few other questionable irregularities in his story that look a little hinky.
I would call them on it, but they might blow you off. So many things floating around the web that is wrong.
I don’t know about everybody else but we were told if you didn’t want the next drug of choice your family wouldn’t get the insurance if anything happened to you, so you became a pin cushion. They gave use some much stuff over there, they were trying to account for everything that they thought Saddam was going to throw at us. Could never tell if you were really getting sick, growing an extra appendage or if it was just the side effects from all the stuff they were giving us. I think we should have got something for field testing some of that stuff. Thinking about it, I remember having to sign paper having to do with all the stuff they gave us. Don't remember exactly what it was for now though.
I'll jump in on this.... Army Brat (Dad served 20 years, 2 tours in Viet Nam) West Point 1972-1976 US Army 1976-2005 US Army Civilian 2005-today (I'm at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio) Son and daughter-in-law both West Point 2004. Brother served active duty 1979-2009, currently Army Civilian in Stuttgart Germany. I served mostly in Europe, 3 Germany tours, one in Belgium and one in France, plus a little time in Bosnia and Kosovo. One tour in Hawaii. My signature pic was taken at Fort Huachuca, AZ.
:cornut: I run into that a lot. "I was in Special Forces. Oh yeah, what unit? That's classified." My eye. Everything that I ever did in Special Forces has been featured on The History Channel or The Military Channel. I even saw the Retired CIA case officer who handled us in Pakistan/Afghanistan on the Military Channel telling all about 'Charlie Wilson's War'. Or, 'I was in Special Forces' in the Marines. You idiot, the Marines have Force Recon(which are Special Operations Forces but not Special Forces), the term Special Forces means only Army Green Berets. The US Military has numerous Special Operational Forces but only one Special Forces. "I was in the SEALs. Oh yeah, what was your class number? Uh, that's classified." WRONG, I don't know a SEAL who can't rattle off his class number proudly while fully asleep. Why people want to lie to make themselves out to be something that they aren't just baffles me. Good People like Friskie and others are going to catch them.:frown2::frown2::lol::lol: Jason