Military Health History Pocket Card

This simplistic card was developed by the VA Office of Academic Affiliations.  Their job is to train healthcare students and residents to take care of their Veteran patients at the VA.

Scroll to the HCV Questions and Vietnam: Unique Health Risks.

Only two insulting and predictable HCV questions; only two predictable health risks!

http://www.va.gov/OAA/pocketcard/m-index.asp#toc

The Vietnam War Summary pretends to be sensitive but still expresses the old canard that Vietnam vets were interested in injecting cheap drugs instead of staying alive, protecting and helping villagers, or killing the enemy.  

If students were asked to memorize this number:  58,261, they might become aware and sensitive VA Health Care Workers.   

(One has to hunt for the figure on the NPS Vietnam Veterans Memorial website.)

Dr. Malcolm Cox is the leader of this division.  If he’s a real physician, he could be an ally in our epic quest to have HCV recognized as a presumptive illness for veteran boomers.  Vietnam Veterans–and those from other wars–are still dying from service-connected injuries and illnesses like HCV.  They could use his help and leadership.

“Dr. Cox, 58,261.  Can you tell me more about that?”

Ed. note: Historians have attempted to ascribe the uptick in Vietnam-era drug abuse in service to the draft. I don’t suppose they looked around in Haight-Ashbury  in 1967 for a clue. The times they were achanging then. Most of us had never seen pharmacies where you just walked in and ordered like McDonalds’s. Prescriptions? Purely optional.