The United States Army Medical Service Corps
THE CORPS DURING THE VIETNAM ERA
Medical Service Corps officers were important members of the medical team in the Vietnam War from the buildup in 1965 through the peak in 1969 to the final pullout in 1975. But Southeast Asia was not the only place where MSCs found themselves on foreign soil. While the Medical Department`s first priority was support of the theater of operations, its attention was also directed to other areas of the world where U.S. national interests were threatened.
A decade of foreign interventions began in 1965 with a sudden deployment of U.S. forces that took some MSCs to the Caribbean. President Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy`s successor, decided to intervene in the Dominican Republic`s civil war between government and leftist rebel forces, a conflict that had its roots in the assassination four years earlier of Raphael Trujillo, the republic`s dictator for thirty-one years. The elected government had been overthrown by military revolt in 1963, and rebel activity increased thereafter.1
The capital city of Santo Domingo was a battle area when Johnson decided to intervene. In April he ordered the 82d Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to move a brigade combat team to the Dominican Republic where it would join the 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade. At the peak of the invasion U.S. forces totaled 23,000. The marines withdrew in June, at which point U.S. military involvement turned to civic action. Withdrawal of U.S. forces was completed in 1966. In all, 14 U.S. military personnel had been killed and 146 wounded in action, of whom 68 required hospitalization.
A clearing company of the 307th Medical Battalion and the medical platoons of two airborne infantry battalions were the first medical units on the island, followed by the rest of the 307th Medical Battalion. As in Korea, command of the medical battalion stayed with the MSC commander, Lt. Col. Charles Anistranski. Similarly, the clearing companies remained under their MSC commanders, including Company D, the first company deployed, commanded by Capt. Robert F. Elliott. Medical additions included the 400-bed 15th Field Hospital from Fort Bragg, the 54th Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance) from Fort Benning, Georgia, and other medical units.
The Medical Department`s mission of providing post hostilities support was again evidenced when civic action became the primary mission. By the end of June medical assistance teams had treated nearly forty thousand civilian patients, mostly obstetric, pediatric, and geriatric-a pattern that continued throughout the operation, despite complaints from a few local physicians that the Army was ruin-
Cover of Medical Service Corps recruiting bulletin, September 1971
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ing their business. Another lesson relearned was the immediate requirement for optometric support in combat operations. The initial absence of MSC optometrists increased evacuations from the Dominican Republic, since it was necessary to send soldiers to Puerto Rico for the nearest optometric services.
Medical Department Organization
The invasion in the Dominican Republic, the beginning of a large buildup in Vietnam, and the maintenance of a large forward-deployed force in Europe caused the Medical Department to rethink how it was organized to support a world power. In 1967 the Board of Inquiry on the Army Logistics System (the Brown Board) recommended that the Army form a worldwide medical command under the surgeon general. The Medical Department2 addressed this in 1969 with its Worldwide Organizational Structure for Army Medical Support (WORSAMS) study.3
Col. Lewis H. Huggins, MSC, an operations officer, was the study coordinator, and MSC officers headed three of the four study teams. They concluded in 1970 that it was not desirable at that point to extend such an organization to overseas areas. However, they proposed forming a medical command as the single manager for the department`s activities in the continental United States, excluding field units. To that end they proposed transfer of the Class I community hospitals to the department`s direct control, joining the Class II medical centers. The Army acted upon the recommendation in 1973 when it consolidated the fixed facilities in the continental United States into the U.S. Army Health Services Command (adding the hospitals in Hawaii, Panama, and Alaska the following year). The Medical Field Service School, Fort Sam Houston, Texas, which had moved into a new building in 1972, also joined the new command as the Academy of Health Sciences.4 Unfortunately, the WORSAMS concept of having the command report directly to the surgeon general was not implemented. Rather, the Health Services Command commander and the surgeon general both reported to the Army chief of staff.
Col. William A. Hamrick, MSC, served as chief of the Medical Service Corps from 1963 to 1969. He was initially `triple-hatted` with the additional duties of executive officer of the Personnel and Training Division and chief of its MSC Branch. Colonel Hamrick was able to persuade Lt. Gen. Leonard B. Heaton, the surgeon general from 1959 to 1969, that the corps needed a full-time chief, and that became his only duty beginning in 1965.5 Removal of the additional duty of branch chief lessened Hamrick`s involvement in the day-to-day business of officer assignments. However, that task continued to require his concurrence, and he was directly involved with key positions.6 Hamrick was replaced in 1969 by Brig. Gen. Manley G. Morrison, who was followed by Brig. Gen. John E. Haggerty in 1973 (see Appendix G). General Morrison had a single duty of corps chief, but Haggerty`s concurrent appointment as the surgeon general`s director of resources management returned the chief to a `dual-hatted` position. The authority of the MSC chiefs over assignments survived various incursions. For example, the surgeon general rejected an effort in 1966 by the Fourth Army commander to gain assignment control over MSC officers in that command.7
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Developments in the Corps
In March 1965 the MSC had 4,512 officers on active duty, an increase of 149 in four months as the Vietnam buildup got under way. This number stood at 5,144 in 1972 (see Appendix K). MSCs served in forty-two specialties in twenty career fields. This was a reduction from fifty-eight specialties in 1961, but it was still a large number. The corps continued to provide authorizations for medical students, a number that stood at 199 in 1972.8 When the Army was unable to meet some of its requirements for MSC officers as the Vietnam War accelerated, especially in air ambulance units, Colonel Hamrick took specific actions to increase the availability of MSCs, including calling up graduating ROTC cadets early and drafting optometrists. Nevertheless, by January 1966 the Army was listing commissioned and warrant officer aviators as well as bacteriologists and biochemists as critical shortages.
Colonel Hamrick`s greatest concern was pilots. He was upset in 1965 when the department requested ninety flight school slots but received only nine, even though 185 of the available 196 MSC aviators were overseas. By February 1967, 247 aviators were in Vietnam, and some were on their second tour. By November only two had not yet gone. In 1969, 35 percent of the MSC pilots in Vietnam were there for the second time.
By 1969 twenty-one MSC pilots had been killed in Vietnam. Hamrick did not lose sight of the fact that this was the only group of Medical Department officers taking significant losses, and he pressed for more MSC aviators. When challenged as to how they would be used after the war, he responded that it took a year to train a pilot and many were serving multiple dangerous tours in Vietnam. `You fill every requisition you get for training.`9 The problem of providing future career opportunities for MSC aviators was resolved by requiring them to obtain an additional MSC specialty as they advanced through the ranks. This would make them competitive for field grade positions in their secondary specialty and would resolve the dilemma posed by the small number of field grade slots for aviators in medical aviation units.
In 1965 the Medical Department developed a proposal to include a warrant officer aviation specialty in the MSC. That did not materialize, but a plan to use warrant officers as aeromedical pilots did, and the surgeon general identified requirements for 298 of them. The department initially desired a 1:1 ratio of commissioned to warrant officer aviators. It wanted that high percentage of commissioned MSCs because of their familiarity with the Medical Department`s entire operations, an expertise they gained through their training and assignments as MSC officers. However, warrant officers came to predominate because the demand for Dustoff aviators exceeded the capacity of the Army to meet all its requirements with commissioned officers.10
The corps continued to expand as the war in Vietnam heated up. By May 1966 there were 4,853 officers on active duty. The MSC was more than twice as large as either the Navy or Air Force MSCs and was larger than ten other branches of the Army, including the Quartermaster, Transportation, and Military Police Corps. The number climbed to 5,601 by the end of 1966, peaking at 6,033 in July
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Female officers at the Medical Field Service School, October 1967
1969, when nearly half were serving overseas. The number began dropping as troop reductions began in Vietnam, falling to 4,957 in June 1975. At that point the MSC was the largest of the six Medical Department corps, accounting for 31 percent of its 16,000 officers.11
The quality of MSC officers remained an area watched by the chief, and Branch continued sending out `buck-up` letters. There was constant attention to the number and quality of new accessions, and the corps maintained active recruiting programs. There were ten to fifteen applications for every opening during 1967, and in 1968 there were 2,000 applications for 265 spaces. Advertising efforts in 1970 included a new MSC recruitment brochure and pamphlets for the scientific specialties. Brochures in 1971 featured a cover photograph of Maj. Patrick A. Brady, MSC, receiving the Medal of Honor.12
The principal sources of officers were ROTC and direct appointments. In addition, West Point graduates were now allowed to select the MSC. The first graduate was appointed in 1965, and by 1968 there were nineteen. OCS also continued as a source of officers, and 100 graduates entered the corps in 1969. Forty of the sixty-two who entered the following year from the Infantry OCS at Fort Benning, Georgia, were in the top third of their class; five were honor graduates. The basic course at the Medical Field Service School bulged with the new accessions, and by July 1966 there were 343 officers in attendance.13 The number of women in the corps remained low. There were just 7 in 1968: 4 laboratory officers, 2 social workers, and 1 comptroller.
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A baccalaureate degree was expected for commissioning in the MSC, and by 1969 nearly 94 percent of the corps had college degrees as opposed to only 70 percent for Army officers as a whole. Hamrick resisted efforts to waive the requirement. `To me, education is simply discipline. I think that anyone can get through school if they are willing to apply themselves sufficiently.`14 The corps also stressed graduate study. In 1969 over one-third of MSC officers had graduate degrees. One of every four Ph.D.s in the Army was an MSC, and there were 960 MSC positions designated as requiring graduate training. Hamrick marveled at the improvement in the quality of MSCs, `the product of an advanced educational experience which confounds the imagination of us old-timers.`15
The Army-Baylor Hospital Administration Program became the Army-Baylor Health Care Administration Program in 1969, in keeping with the profession`s expansion into different health care settings. It remained the only avenue for graduate training in hospital administration open to MSCs. Prior attendance at resident Command and General Staff College or the Armed Forces Staff College was not a bar to selection; conversely, Army-Baylor attendance did not bar an officer`s attendance at the staff college. However, it was the rare officer who did both.16
Baylor classes averaged fifty-four students; the largest was sixty-two in 1967. The student body included officers from each of the six Medical Department corps, as well as other agencies and countries. A few junior officers were selected for each class; for example, eight officers with less than three years` service were included in the thirty-seven MSCs chosen for the 1968 class.17
The department`s assignment policies dictated the use of Baylor graduates as hospital executive officers in Vietnam. The commander of the 67th Medical Group took issue with that practice. His complaint was not with the quality of the course but with the lack of field experience of the officers as they continued through their careers. On the other hand, the commander of the 44th Medical Brigade (who was formerly the commander of the 68th Medical Group) thought the Baylor graduates did an outstanding job once in the field.18
Baylor continued to apply pressure for higher entrance requirements and tougher courses. It imposed a five-year limit for completion of the degree, a result of continued problems with students who completed the first year of the course but failed to finish their residency-year research project. Of the 536 students from 1964 to 1975, forty failed to graduate from Baylor; most were physicians and international students. Baylor considered establishing its own hospital administration program, which presumably would have absorbed the Army-Baylor Program, but the university concluded that it was not feasible and dropped the idea.19
The corps maintained its emphasis on military training. The MSC basic course was eight weeks long in 1966 (as compared to six weeks for the Army Nurse Corps and four and a half weeks for the other Medical Department corps). The MSC advanced course was twenty-one weeks long. The Medical Department`s operation of its own school and its provision of different basic courses for the various branches survived a challenge by the Haines Board, a study of Army schools in 1965, and the department went on to lengthen the MSC basic course to sixteen weeks.20
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MSC boards selected officers for the Regular (resident) Course at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In 1972 Lt. Col. James Van Straten was the first MSC honor graduate, and the following year Maj. Bob Muzio, MSC, convinced the college to include Medical Department officers in the class leadership positions of section and work group leaders. A very small number of MSCs-typically two a year-attended senior service college. The Army created the Army War College Corresponding Studies Course in 1968 to expand war college opportunity to more officers, particularly those in the reserve components. A rigorous two-year program that included two resident summer sessions, it was the only military correspondence course with competitive selection. Col. Larry W. Coker, MSC, was a member of the first graduating class.21
There were complaints about the quality of officers assigned to garrisoned field medical units in the later years of the Vietnam period. General Haggerty believed the corps had ignored those assignments. `It bothered me no end when some of our people were being relieved from command.`22 The commander of the 1st Corps Support Command at Fort Bragg sounded the alarm in 1973. He complained of a shortage of MSCs in the 55th Medical Group, as well as the lack of depth and experience of those who were assigned. The group operations officer, a captain whose highest military education was the basic MSC course, was filling a major`s position that called for a Leavenworth graduate. The commanders of the 5th and 28th Combat Surgical Hospitals were both majors and advanced course graduates when they should have been lieutenant colonels and Army-Baylor graduates. The group executive officer should ideally have been a graduate of both Leavenworth and Army-Baylor, but the incumbent was neither.23
Lt. Gen. Melvin Zais, Third Army commander, believed the matter was serious, and he personally asked the surgeon general for remedial action. It was one of the first problems on General Haggerty`s desk when he became chief of the corps, and he immediately directed that all graduates of the Regular Course at Fort Leavenworth would go to field unit assignments. `We had two guys . . . who almost passed out because they had thought they were coming right back to The Surgeon General`s Office.`24 MSC field medical performance was also helped by the Army`s establishment of command selection boards to pick officers for command.
The pressure continued to move MSCs into administrative positions once held only by physicians. It took another turn in 1968 when the Department of Defense (DOD) directed the Medical Department to convert 3 percent of its Medical Corps spaces to MSC. More pressure came in 1973 when Secretary of Defense Elliot Richardson asked the military departments to make better use of their military health care professionals. A legislative proposal for incentive pay for physicians had encountered administration opposition because of the sizable share of the nation`s supply of health personnel claimed by the military. The departments were required to remove physicians and dentists from positions `for which they may be best qualified but which can be adequately filled by non-physicians.`25
In this environment MSC position opportunities continued to improve. MSCs served as chief of staff of the U.S. Army Medical Command (later retitled the 7th Medical Command), headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany, a position
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Colonel Luehrs receives the Distinguished Service Medal from General Jennings
that included the additional duty of executive officer for the chief surgeon, U.S. Army, Europe, and Seventh Army. The hospital executive officer position was firmly established for MSC officers, although Medical Department policy persisted in reserving command of operational medical treatment facilities for physicians. In 1969 Col. William S. Mullins, MSC, replaced a physician as commander of the surgeon general`s historical unit, and in 1970 Col. Grover L. Kistler, MSC, became the first nonphysician director of the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Uniformed Services (CHAMPUS). Col. Charles J. Shively, MSC, was appointed in 1974 as the first commander of the U.S. Army Medical Department Personnel Support Agency.
A major advance occurred in 1969 when Col. William C. Luehrs, MSC, became the executive officer for the surgeon general, a change precipitated by Lt. Gen. Hal B. Jennings, Jr., who replaced Heaton as surgeon general in 1969. Colonel Luehrs` predecessor had argued that it was necessary for the executive officer to be a physician in order to function as a full partner in the department`s senior leadership team. Such a policy, he insisted, allowed the surgeon general and his deputy to pursue their duties without `having to be braced for some unexpected cataclysmic event which may have come about innocently` because of the executive officer`s lack of medical training. Luehrs was thus initially leery about the job because of such beliefs, but he found that General Jennings gave him unstinting support.26
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Medical Department doctrine continued to specify that only Medical Corps officers would command units engaged in active patient care, and General Heaton had been outspoken on the subject. However, administrative assignments were no more popular among physicians in the Vietnam War than in other periods. A survey in 1966 showed that fear of a prospective administrative or command assignment was the second most prevalent reason for leaving the Army. Col. William A. Boyson, MC, was surprised by the vehemence of the responses to his survey. He attributed it to the desires of military physicians to maintain clinical proficiency and to the fact that it was `all but impossible to do both clinical medicine and command-administration at the same time.`27
The Department of Defense intervened in the command issue in May 1973 when the deputy secretary of defense sent a memorandum to the Services directing that `any qualified health professional may command or exercise administrative direction of a military health care facility or serve as executive officer of such a facility without regard to the officer`s basic health profession.`28 The memo noted Air Force success with MSC officers as clinic commanders and directed the Army and Navy to submit their implementation plans by 4 June. The Army Medical Department ignored the order.
General Jennings did support a proposal to permanently transfer command of medical battalions to MSCs. The plan, as briefed in 1973, would convert the `dual-hatted` position of division surgeon and medical battalion commander into two separate positions, a Medical Corps division surgeon and a Medical Service Corps battalion commander. That change would enable the division surgeon to concentrate on the division`s medical practice, preventive medicine activities, and planning for medical support of operations while permitting the battalion commander to concentrate full time on the administrative functions of command and control. The proposal ran into resistance from the Army Staff, and the chief of staff disapproved it in a decision that retained the `dual-hatted` physician commander. The decision reaffirmed that MSC officers would command garrisoned units but that the MSC commander would step down and become the executive officer when the battalion deployed operationally.29
Cohesion initiatives continued. The gold versus silver issue resurfaced when Colonel Hamrick solicited comments on the MSC insignia. He found that younger officers actually preferred a silver insignia because it distinguished them from the other corps of the Medical Department. One observed that the performance of MSCs, not the color of their insignia, would determine their status. This was about the last word on the subject, and the controversy ended. The pride that had developed in the distinctive insignia was evidenced in its use in the Silver Caduceus Society of Korea, a collegial organization formed in 1967 by MSC officers assigned to the U.S. Eighth Army.30
There was a renewal of the effort to write the history of the corps. The department reactivated the project in 1965, and Colonel Hamrick chaired a meeting of a reconstituted editorial board. The board reestablished the project as a single-author book with a publication date of 1971. This effort did not succeed either, and by 1975 the MSC volume, while a fully chartered Army project, was in its second decade and again languishing.
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TECSTAR
The corps was nearly abolished during the Vietnam era. The reorganization of the Army in 196231 led to a follow-up study, the Technical Career Structure of the Army (TECSTAR). By 1964 the Army had abolished five of the branch chief positions, and with the exception of the Corps of Engineers and the `special branches` (Judge Advocate General, Chaplain, and Medical Department), the branch chiefs lost their personnel management functions and had meaningless titles.32 The reorganization broke the Army`s historical branch support pattern, and TECSTAR was an extension of that process.33
The TECSTAR plan offered five alternatives, each of which called for the disestablishment of the Medical Service Corps. One alternative retained the MSC for the scientific specialties; the other four called for the abolition of the corps entirely, with varying arrangements for disposing of the officers. Requirements for the administrative and scientific specialties would be met from the general pool of Army officers-for example, medical logistics positions would be filled by Quartermaster, Transportation, or Ordnance Corps officers.
The study infuriated General Heaton. He protested that if allowed to go unchecked it would cause a marked deterioration in medical care. The MSC was an essential part of the Medical Department team, and without it `we could not continue in our presently highly effective fashion-it is that simple.` When Heaton could not convince the Army Staff to exclude the MSC from the study, he urged the Medical Department`s senior leaders to speak out against it at every opportunity.34
Heaton believed that the exceptional quality of MSC officers in branch-immaterial positions in the Pentagon might have whetted the Army Staff`s appetite for more. The transfer in 1963 of Col. Leo Benade, MSC, to the Adjutant General Corps was instructive. Benade, called the `indispensable man` by the Army Times for his expertise in military compensation, represented the unusually gifted MSC officer, something borne out by his eventual promotion to lieutenant general. Another was Col. Ralph Richards, MSC, a confederate of Benade`s in the Surgeon General`s Special Projects Office who transferred to the Army Finance Corps and retired as a major general.35
Whatever the cause, the threat was real, and Colonel Hamrick saw TECSTAR as a call to arms. `We are in the process of firing a heavy volley of rebuttals, but at this stage cannot predict the outcome.` He enlisted Col. Ralph G. LeMoon, MSC, chief of the Special Projects Office, to head a task force. Officers were brought in from the Medical Field Service School to help staff a `War Room` in the Surgeon General`s Office, and the battle was joined.36
One of the most valuable reinforcements came from the corps` association with the American College of Hospital Administrators (ACHA). Hamrick asked Ray E. Brown, a former ACHA president, to prepare a report on TECSTAR. Brown, the surgeon general`s consultant in hospital administration, was director of the Duke University Program in Hospital Administration and a nationally recognized pioneer in the profession, whose energy, writings, and reputation were legendary.37
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Brown`s report said the TECSTAR proposals flew in the face of contemporary hospital administration practice and common sense. `It just doesn`t make sense to disrupt the efficient and effective organizational arrangement that you have when it would serve no purpose to do so.` It was essential for the department to have its own comptrollers, personnel officers, registrars, and all the other specialties provided by the MSC. `Just as the best pilot on the Mississippi River would be lost on the Amazon, the non-medical specialist cannot appropriately apply and practice his specialty in the medical setting without knowledge of the peculiarities of that setting.`38
General Heaton laid it on the line. `I must repudiate the TECSTAR detailed plan.`39 The effort that it represented had collapsed, and TECSTAR was rejected to the extent that the chief of staff issued a disclaimer that it was `approved for information only.`40 The Medical Service Corps was saved for another day.
A Star
The absence of general officer opportunity was demoralizing, especially as MSC officers raised their educational levels and moved into positions of increased responsibility. The corps was used as part of the total Army commissioned strength in determining the total number of general officers allowed by Congress, justifying an estimated twenty-three general officers by its officer strength. Yet the MSC was the only male commissioned corps with no opportunity for promotion to general. This was particularly galling since it was larger than ten other Army branches that in the aggregate had thirty-one generals.41 Awarding one of the existing Medical Department stars to the MSC would have meant taking a star from the Medical, Dental, or Veterinary Corps, an action that no surgeon general was willing to approve. In fact, Col. Vernon McKenzie, MSC, observed that when the department was faced with loss of its Veterinary Corps star, Maj. Gen. Silas B. Hays, the surgeon general at the time, was willing to see it transferred to the Quartermaster Corps rather than put it in the MSC.42
Colonel Hamrick counted on Heaton`s support, knowing full well that the establishment of a general officer slot would not come to pass without his concurrence. Hamrick`s confidence was well placed, for General Heaton declared in writing, `I believe that no other branch or corps within the Army has a greater diversity of scientific, technical, and administrative specialties than the Medical Service Corps.`43
Another ally was William P. MacCracken, the Washington counsel for the American Optometric Association and the key player in the 1945 legislative attempt to create an optometry corps. MacCracken took up the fight for an MSC star, lobbying in Congress for support of a bill introduced by Congressman Philip J. Philbin of Massachusetts in 1965. The lobbyist made a strong impression on Congressman Durward G. Hall, who told Maj. Gen. James T McGibony, the deputy surgeon general, that MacCracken frightened him. McGibony assured the congressman that MacCracken was legitimate.44
But the Army`s position remained unchanged. It did not want general officer authorizations tied to positions, and it opposed the Philbin bill.45 However, during the course of the debate it also became evident that the Army would support
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MSC general officer opportunity as long as it was not tied to a specific position. This new wrinkle came when the Army`s judge advocate general, in a reversal of an earlier opinion, ruled that the Army could not promote MSC officers to general officer without a change to the law. General Creighton Abrams, the vice chief of staff, opposed the Philbin bill`s tying an MSC star to a position, but he supported removing the statutory bar to MSC general officer promotions.46
Hamrick launched a campaign to gain congressional approval, and he and others wrote congressmen `and anybody who would listen.` The campaign worked. The bill was placed on the House Armed Services Committee`s calendar in spite of Defense Department opposition, the work of Colonel McKenzie through his close association with the committee`s senior counsel.47 Heaton, called to testify in July 1966, was obligated to support the Defense Department`s negative position. However, when questioned by members of the committee he made it clear that he personally favored the bill. The same turnabout happened in September when he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee.48
The Philbin bill passed and was signed into law by President Johnson on 24 September. In a compromise designed to satisfy the Department of Defense, it provided for a brigadier general in the Medical Service Corps without specifying that this would have to be the chief. Furthermore, the star did not come from within the Medical Department`s allocation. This feat was accomplished by Senator Leverett Saltonstall, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who `had a sack of stars and he took them out and put them back as he wanted to.` On 10 November 1966, Hamrick was promoted to brigadier general.49
An MSC general was a matter of pride to the corps. However, the inequity in general officer opportunity when compared to other Army branches remained. In 1972 the MSC had one general for 5,430 officers. However, the Ordnance Corps, with 4,917 officers, had 26 generals. The Quartermaster Corps, with 3,853 officers, had 14; and the Finance Corps, with 1,009 officers, had 4. Transportation Corps officers had twenty-nine times the chance for a star that their MSC counterparts did.50
General Morrison attempted to increase general officer opportunity for the MSC. He commissioned a study that identified sixteen Medical Department positions that could be filled by MSC general officers.51 He gained the support of General Jennings, who asked the Army chief of staff to increase the MSC allocation to three general officers-one major general and two brigadier generals-but the request failed when it ran afoul of a 25 percent cut in Army general officers. Subsequently, Congressman Don Fuqua introduced legislation to change the MSC authorization to five general officers per thousand Regular Army officers. Fuqua`s bill would have authorized ten MSC generals, with a major general as chief of the corps and brigadier generals as assistant chiefs. Morrison encouraged senior MSCs to support the legislation on the grounds that establishing those general officer slots by law would create `a strong moral obligation` for the secretary of the Army to allocate stars against the billets. Fuqua`s proposal did not succeed, however, and there was no change to the number of MSC generals.52
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Developments in the Administrative Specialties
In 1961 MSC administrative officers had been serving in thirty-six specialties (see Appendix H). A series of actions reduced that by 1972 to twenty-three specialties in nine career fields: comptroller, hospital administration, medical aviation, medical technical intelligence, operations and training, personnel, registrar, supply, and medical equipment repair (see Appendix K). These classifications remained dynamic, and a number of changes were made during the Vietnam period. Most officers entered their specialty fields without prior qualification and were not awarded a specialty skill identifier until after completing six to eight years on active duty. Each specialty was represented by a senior officer appointed as a consultant to the chief of the corps.53
The registrar specialty numbered 185 officers in 1972. It would change its title to patient administration, a term more in keeping with its expanded functions, which now included quality assurance as well as insurance eligibility under DOD`s new Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Uniformed Services (CHAMPUS) for military family members. Some patient administrators, especially Maj. Max Hoyt, MSC, and Col. Boyd E. Cooksley, MSC, were instrumental in adapting the International Patient Diagnostic System to Army systems in 1971, giving the department an automated data base for discharged patients.54
There were 149 comptrollers in 1972. Col. Milton C. Devolites, MSC, was the action officer in 1970 for formation of the Surgeon General`s Directorate of Resources Management, a consolidation of five separate offices. Devolites became the first deputy director, but Medical Corps general officers served as directors until General Haggerty`s dual appointment in 1973. Lt. Col. Donald A. Waller, MSC, in 1970 was appointed the assistant executive to the comptroller of the Army, the first Medical Department officer to serve in that capacity on the Army Staff. An average of three MSCs attended each class of the Army Comptrollership Program at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York. The program, which had initially focused almost exclusively on financial management, gradually changed to encompass an overall concept of resource management.55
The medical supply specialty (433 in 1972) had initial difficulties to overcome in supporting the buildup in Vietnam. Col. Charles C. Pixley, MC, commander of the 68th Medical Group, said that one of his biggest problems was the quality of his medical logisticians.56 There were not enough experienced officers, a problem attributed to various DOD efficiency drives that had converted depot military positions to civilian. In addition, the transfer of Army medical supply functions to centralized DOD agencies had diminished the department`s ability to train officers in medical depot operations. Further, grade authorizations for medical logisticians did not match their levels of responsibility; a medical depot, for example, was authorized a major as the commander. The overall problem of shortages and inexperience was put in a nutshell by a senior MSC logistician. `You give me a lieutenant to run supply and this poor kid has never been in a hospital.`57
Action was necessary. Training programs were undertaken at the Atlanta Army Depot and the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Agency (USAMMA) at Fort Detrick, Maryland. The department increased the grade of the depot and subde?
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pot commanders as well as the number of officers in the basic medical logistics course at the Medical Field Service School. By 1968 Col. Jesse N. Butler, MSC, the surgeon general`s chief of medical supply, concluded that MSC medical logisticians were, on balance, acquitting themselves well in Vietnam. Officers trained in inventory management at USAMMA were well qualified, and the basic course was functioning satisfactorily. Warrant officers served as medical equipment repair specialists, the field that had opened to them in 1961, and in 1972 their number stood at eighty-four. A pioneer, CW4 W. B. `Foxy` King, retired that year, at which time he was assigned to the Surgeon General`s Office as the first head of the Medical Department`s National Maintenance Point.58
MSC aviators (359 in 1972) conducted the Army`s portion of the Military Assistance to Safety and Traffic (MAST) program, a project involving the Departments of Defense, Transportation, and Health and Human Services. MAST began in July 1970 at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, as a test of the feasibility of utilizing aeromedical helicopters for evacuating seriously injured highway accident victims. The test was successful, and legislation in 1973 provided a permanent authority for that DOD role. The aeromedical units assigned MAST responsibility provided a 24-hour standby crew of pilot, copilot, crew chief, and medic.59
Hospital administration got a boost in 1965 with passage of the Medical Care for the Aged (Medicare) and Medical Care for the Indigent (Medicaid) amendments to the Social Security Act. The federal government`s direct financing of medical care uncorked a federal money gusher, but hospitals had to adopt standard business practices to support their claims for reimbursement. Sometimes that meant performing rudimentary business practices, such as preparing budgets, that they had never done before, while learning to adapt to federal regulations and forms. The need for professionally trained managers was more pronounced than ever, and the number of physicians who served as chief executive officers of American hospitals dropped to 813 by 1972.60
Federal dollars made the practice of medicine more lucrative, at least initially, further dimming the luster of administrative positions for military physicians, who needed to remain current in the practice of medicine in order to secure clinical appointments when they left active duty. Then, on the heels of Medicare came national concerns over costs and access to care. The federal government translated this into a series of laws unprecedented for their number and the extent of their involvement with health care organizations.61 The changes were felt by MSC health care administrators, who, like their civilian counterparts, operated within a changing environment and were more and more required to be experts in regulations. Indeed, the growing complexity of federal paperwork was the principal topic at the annual meeting of Army hospital administrators in 1966.62
The membership of the American College of Hospital Administrators was now predominately composed of administrators with the professional master`s degree in hospital administration. The MSC retained close ties, and in 1966 Hamrick and Col. Ralph G. LeMoon, MSC, advanced to fellowship, the highest level of advancement in the college. Maj. Gen. James T. McGibony, MC, served as the first regent-at-large for military members from 1964 to 1967, and later Hamrick replaced him.63
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There were concerns with the general health of the operations and training career field, which broadened to include intelligence. The deputy commander of the 44th Medical Brigade maintained that the department`s performance in Vietnam was hampered by a shortage of seasoned operations officers. He attributed this to the department`s failure to make it an attractive specialty for young officers, who saw less opportunity for graduate education in the specialty, especially the Army-Baylor Program. Generals Hamrick, Morrison, and Haggerty were aware of those perceptions and countered them with efforts to emphasize field assignments and to improve opportunities for operations officers.64
Operations officers contributed at all levels of the department. Maj. Roy S. Church, MSC, the S-3 of the 46th Medical Battalion in Heilbronn, Germany, was responsible for the Army`s Expert Field Medical Badge, a competitive award earned by medical personnel in the same manner that infantrymen compete for the Expert Infantry Badge. The program was adopted based on a test developed by Church in the 4th Infantry Division. Across the Atlantic, Robert F. Elliott, a major in 1973, was chief of the medical section of the U.S. Army School of the Americas in Panama. His cadre and students regularly conducted civic action missions at a hamlet accessible only by a two-hour trip by motor launch. Some officers were assigned to the Historical Unit of the Surgeon General`s Office. One of those, Capt. Robert J. Parks, MSC, completed the training volume of the Medical Department`s World War II history, a project begun during the war. Published in 1974, it was one of the last volumes published in that series.65
Health facilities planning finally got its own specialty within the Pharmacy, Supply, and Administration Section, and by 1975 there were six officers in the field. Some served as consultants for U.S. allies. Lt. Col. Harold T. Heady, MSC, for example, provided guidance to the Guatemalan Army in 1967 in planning the construction of a 350-bed military hospital. Biomedical information, another emerging specialty, had sixty-one officers by 1975.66
A sizable number of MSCs in all specialties, especially operations, served as instructors at the Medical Field Service School. Lt. Col. John E. Persons, MSC, was commander of the officer student battalion during the height of the Vietnam protests, when three Medical Corps officers decided to show their antiwar sentiment by wearing their National Defense Service `Alive in `65` ribbons wrapped in black crepe. They ran into Persons, who introduced himself as their commander. `Oh my goodness. I see my supply sergeant has made a terrible mistake and given you the wrong ribbons,` he said as he yanked the decorations from their uniforms. `I`ll see that he gets you the right ones.`67
Developments in the Scientific Specialties
There were 89 pharmacy officers on active duty in 1965, but there were still 161 graduate pharmacists serving as Army enlisted pharmacy technicians. External pressure continued on the department to discontinue using enlisted pharmacists, and the number of officers nearly doubled to 166 by 1972.
The trend toward greater sophistication produced a series of progressive steps over a five-year period beginning in 1966. Fitzsimons Army Medical Center,
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Military and civilian pharmacists at WRAMC, August 1974
Denver, Colorado, and Letterman Army Medical Center, Presidio of San Francisco, California, began additional residency programs in the general practice of pharmacy. Fitzsimons also started the first sterile product and intravenous additive program and the first unit dose program. Walter Reed began a program in oncology pharmacy. Letterman began a nuclear medicine pharmacy service, and Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, Texas, established an oncology pharmacy for the preparation of antineoplastic agents. The Brooke initiative led to the administering of drugs by pharmacists, an expansion of pharmacy in a way that seemed to reach back to its apothecary roots.68
The activities of individual pharmacy officers reflected the continued growth. In 1971 the American Pharmaceutical Association selected Capt. Glidden N. Libby, MSC, of the Fort Carson Army Hospital, as the first Army winner of the Military Section Literary Award. The establishment of the Health Services Command at Fort Sam Houston in 1973 included the appointment of Col. Robert B. Tweito, MSC, as the first pharmacy staff officer.69
In 1965, 579 officers, or 12.8 percent of the corps, were serving in the Medical Allied Sciences Section in six career fields: psychology, social work, podiatry, entomology, nuclear science, and laboratory science. The last group was the largest, with 213 officers in six specialties: bacteriology, biochemistry, parasitology, immunology, clinical laboratory, and physiology.70 Regulatory demands, such as those generated by new environmental protection laws, as well as the steady advances in medical technology, added to the number of scientific specialty officers needed by the Army. By 1972 the Medical Allied Sciences Section had increased to 878 officers, or 17.1 percent of the corps. The largest increases occurred in laboratory sciences (from 213 to 286) and social work (from 148 to 260). A program of commissioning dental hygienists as military community oral health managers began in 1969. Six officers held this specialty in 1972, but it was soon abandoned.71
The underlying tension between the scientific and the administrative specialties resurfaced in 1972 when a group of nineteen MSC and Army Medical Specialist Corps (AMSC) officers assigned to the 2d General Hospital, Landstuhl, Germany, wrote the surgeon general requesting the transfer of all MSC scientific specialty officers to the AMSC. The Landstuhl group contended that scientific officers were at a disadvantage in a corps predominately com-
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Parasitologist at the 9th Medical Laboratory, Long Binh, Vietnam, 1970
posed of administrative specialists, particularly since they often had administrative officers in their rating chain. Their main complaint was that they were expected to handle additional duties such as inspections, reports of survey, inventories, and other tasks that they believed were demeaning and detracted from their primary responsibilities. All in all, they thought that the AMSC would be a better match.
Col. Donald H. Hunter, MSC, chief of the Medical Allied Sciences Section, offered little comfort. While Hunter agreed that the Army had a responsibility to ensure the appropriate use of its officers, it also had the right to expect them to perform duties inherent in the military calling. Any discipline has an administrative component, and exposure to those duties was an advantage, since they must expect to shoulder managerial responsibilities as they increased in rank. Additionally, Hunter believed that efficiency reports written by administrative officers often helped, rather than hurt, scientific officers.72
Scientific specialty officers figured prominently in medical research and development. In 1973, a representative year, eighty-one MSC scientists were serving in research assignments, including seventy-one with doctorates; many conducted `bench work` research. Beginning in 1964, Lt. Col. Dan C. Cavanaugh, MSC, with Lt. Col. John D. Marshall, MSC, carried out landmark plague research at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), Washington, D.C. Cavanaugh`s work in Vietnam with the WRAIR Medical
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Research Team enabled him to explain the puzzling relationship of plague outbreaks to changes in climate. Cavanaugh was able to demonstrate from his research that hot weather interrupted the process of the disease`s transmission via the flea vector, and this phenomenon reduced the incidence of plague during warmer periods.73 Cavanaugh`s international recognition resulted in his election to the Expert Panel for Bacterial Diseases of the World Health Organization. In 1965 Col. Robert B. Lindberg, MSC, a researcher at the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research, the Army`s burn center at Fort Sam Houston, was credited, along with Arthur D. Mason, M.D., and Col. John A. Moncrief, MC, with developing sulfamylon cream, an antibacterial topical ointment. `Lindberg`s butter` was very effective in reducing mortality from severe burns and became the standard treatment. Col. Sidney Gaines, MSC, a bacteriologist assigned to the WRAIR research team in Vietnam from 1965 to 1967, set up the Enteric Bacteriology Laboratory of the Pasteur Institute in Saigon. Other officers contributed to medical research staff work, and in 1970 Lt. Col. John N. Albertson, MSC, a microbiologist, was assigned as the executive officer for the Army`s Director of Army Research. Colonel Hunter and Col. Robert J. T. Joy, MC, a research scientist on the staff of the director of defense research and engineering, championed the use of MSC scientists in senior management roles.74
MSCs did very well in those roles, but their success fueled criticism from those in the civilian research community who feared that civilian scientists were being denied opportunities for advancement in the Army. This issue became contentious and was finally resolved in 1977 when Lt. Gen. Richard R. Taylor met with some of the Medical Department`s critics. Taylor made a distinction between the university-based researchers who were responsible for training teachers and investigators and the military medical researchers whose primary mission was not to teach but to solve military medical problems. That served as the rationale for reserving the senior administrative positions (such as commanders) for uniformed scientists. Civilian scientists were best utilized in science management positions (such as research department chiefs). Further, they had special promotion opportunities based solely on their scientific performance, not their specific position. Taylor`s explanation was convincing, and the public criticism ended.75
In 1971 Lt. Col. Bruce F. Eldridge, MSC, led a team of Army and Air Force entomologists who studied the mosquito vectors of Venezuelan Equine
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Encephalomyelitis (VEE) in several states of the southwest United States where the epidemic had spread from Mexico. VEE, a disease of horses and mules that causes an infection in man similar to influenza, had devastated the horse populations of Latin America and posed a considerable threat to the North American equine population. The work by Eldridge`s team enabled the United States to control the spread of VEE using a vaccine developed by Col. Trygve O. Berge, MSC, of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Fort Detrick, Maryland. The risk to laboratory personnel who worked with virulent strains of disease in the institute`s research programs had necessitated development of a vaccine for humans. In the early 1960s Berge had been the first test subject inoculated with the TC-50 vaccine for VEE.76
MSCs were major contributors to Army blood research. In 1972 Maj. James E. Spiker, MSC, chief of the blood bank at Brooke Army Medical Center, along with the center`s medical staff, identified an extremely rare case of Rh negative blood antigen that contributed to the patient`s hemolytic disease. In 1973 Maj. John H. Radcliff, MSC, chief of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center blood bank, and Lt. Col. Michael W. Hannagan, MC, developed an automated information storage and retrieval system for blood-banking operations.
Col. Frank R. Camp, MSC, was the Army`s giant in blood banking. In 1964 Camp prepared a study with Col. William H. Crosby, MC, that resulted in the development of a fellowship program in blood banking as well as the establishment of the Blood Transfusion Research Division of the U.S. Army Medical Research Laboratory at Fort Knox, Kentucky. He directed the division from its beginning, and at the time of his retirement in 1974 he was the laboratory commander. Author of hundreds of articles, Camp pioneered important developments, including the extension of shelf life through freezing. He was the driving force behind Army blood banking throughout this period, and the Fort Knox blood bank center was named in his honor in 1983.77
A shortage of psychologists at the beginning of the period was representative of shortages nationally in various scientific specialties. As an example, in 1964 there were only 519 applicants for 1,750 civilian position vacancies advertised at the American Psychological Association`s annual convention. The MSC continued its recruiting efforts, and the number of active duty psychologists increased from 95 in 1965 to 139 in 1972. Col. Charles A. Thomas, Jr., an Army Air Corps
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Audiologist at WRAMC fits patient with hearing aid, October 1969
enlisted pilot in World War II who had been shot down over occupied France and helped to safety by the French Resistance movement, served as the psychology consultant to the surgeon general for eight years prior to his retirement in 1974, at which time he was also chief of the Medical Allied Sciences Section. Thomas concentrated on expanding the scope of psychologists from narrowly focused diagnostic and therapeutic functions. He recruited psychologists with industrial, educational, and counseling expertise in addition to clinical skills.78
The graduate psychology student program continued, but was replaced in 1974 by the Health Professions Scholarship Program. Where the earlier program had been specifically set up for psychology students, the newer program was established for training physicians, and the inclusion of other health specialties was not guaranteed. The entry grade for Ph.D. psychologists increased to captain, and training opportunities in the Army improved. Walter Reed Army Medical Center established a counseling psychology internship in 1969 and a child psychology fellowship the following year. Psychologists were added to division medical battalions in 1972.
The first Army Behavioral Science Seminar was held in 1970. This meeting, attended by psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers, nearly turned into a brawl because of dissension among the different groups. Psychologists were fearful of being tagged as junior psychiatrists, and social workers were fearful of threats to their autonomy. Col. Franklin Del Jones, MC, later the psychiatry consultant to the surgeon general, described the affair as `a good deal of acrimony, a great deal of hurt feelings, and a minimum of useful work.` The surprising thing was that the annual meetings continued.79
The Army became increasingly sensitive during this period to the problems of hearing loss among soldiers, especially at large training installations. Its attention was concentrated by new Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations for federal agencies, including the Army. A study in 1962 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, had revealed severe hearing loss in over half of the weapons instructors. More alarming, a U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command study in 1975 indicated that over half of combat arms soldiers had a documented hearing loss by their tenth year of service. An article in the Washington Star reported that some soldiers used cigarette filters because they were unable to obtain regular ear plugs.80
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Audiologists emerged as the experts in the prevention and treatment of hearing loss. Commissioning required a master`s degree in the specialty, and by 1972 there were twenty-five audiologists on active duty. Two officers were in doctoral programs, and Capt. Don W. Worthington, MSC, served on the Professional Services Board of the American Board of Examiners in Speech Pathology of the American Speech and Hearing Association.
Audiologists` functions were part curative and part preventive as they performed both in clinical care and hearing conservation roles. In their clinical duties they provided hearing aid evaluation, aural rehabilitation, and hearing testing. In their preventive role they were the principal action officers for the Army`s hearing conservation program, a function under the supervision of the deputy chief of staff for personnel. In an unusual move, the Army directed in 1974 that 50 percent of audiologists` time would be spent in hearing conservation activities, a step taken to preserve their availability for the preventive function.81
In 1965 the American Podiatry Association recognized the Association of Podiatrists in Federal Service, headed by Maj. William A. Potter, MSC, as a component group of the national organization. It presented Potter its Gold Award for his exhibit on fatigue fractures of the foot at the annual meeting. By 1972 there were thirty-nine podiatrists on active duty, a doubling in seven years.
As Medicare expanded, podiatry became a much more lucrative practice because the government funded care for the elderly, a growing market in the aging American population. The change placed military salaries at a disadvantage in podiatry, just as in medicine. Podiatrists sought additional pay, but DOD would not support them because the Army was not experiencing difficulty in recruiting podiatrists as it was with physicians and dentists.82 Podiatrists also complained about promotion opportunity, and General Hamrick instructed members of promotion boards to give podiatry and optometry officers a `fair shake.`83
The department depended upon social workers who served as consultants to commanders and clinical staffs in addition to their patient care role, but it experienced a shortage at the beginning of this period. The 148 officers on active duty in 1965 were not sufficient to meet the need, but the Army was competing for social workers at a time when there were an estimated ten thousand openings nationwide, a product of President Johnson`s Great Society and other social programs. The social work consultant, Lt. Col. Fergus T. Monahan, MSC, sought assistance from the heads of university programs, and the number on active duty increased to 260 in 1972. Demand continued to increase, and by 1974 his successor, Lt. Col. Paul F. Darnauer, MSC, had identified a requirement for 320 social work officers on active duty.84
Requirements for social workers were further increased in 1966 when the Army established the Army Community Service (ACS), a program of family support services at Army installations under the direction of the Army`s deputy chief of staff for personnel. It was based on a concept developed by Lt. Col. William S. Rooney, MSC, who saw it as a way to meet the needs created by an Army that was more and more populated by married and single-parent soldiers. By August 1969 there were forty-one MSC social workers assigned to the expanded ACS programs. The ACS positions joined community hospitals, general hospitals, cor?
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Sanitary engineer tests water at Medical Field Service School, 1970
rectional facilities, and an `other` category (instructor, staff officer, and researcher) as practice fields for MSC social workers.85
Sanitary Engineering
The Sanitary Engineering Section went from 126 officers in 1965 to 188 in 1972. In 1858 Florence Nightingale had called for creation of `some specially qualified Sanitary Officer, medical or otherwise` to perform environmental science functions for military hospitals.86 The Army fielded Nightingale`s specialist over a century later, when the sanitarian was added to the division surgeon`s staff. They joined sanitary engineers, as well as officers from another two specialties, entomology and nuclear medicine, who moved to this section in 1973 from the Medical Allied Sciences Section.87
The number of entomologists on active duty increased from fifty-six in 1965 to eighty-three in 1972, with about a third of those officers serving overseas. They were active in tri-service coordination of pest control activities, efforts that had been made permanent with DOD`s establishment of the Armed Forces Pest Control Board in 1962. Entomologists were essential for the Army`s control of insect-borne disease, and the surgeon general emphasized the value of their role as consultants on the staffs of major headquarters in Southeast Asia.88
In 1973 sanitarians, by then called environmental science officers (ESO), replaced physicians in preventive medicine and occupational health positions at twenty installations in the United States. There they assumed responsibilities for water quality, food service sanitation, hospital sanitation and infection control, health education, waste disposal and environmental pollution, insect and rodent control, and epidemiological investigations. There were 106 ESOs on active duty by 1975, including the first female, 2d Lt. Karen M. Oxidine, MSC.
In 1971 Col. Bernard L. Goldstein, MSC, the chief of the Sanitary Engineering Section, instituted the Environmental Health Sciences and Engineering Education Program. It was established to commission 100 ESOs over a five-year period by enabling selected enlisted applicants to remain on active duty while they completed their baccalaureate degrees in environmental health. They were commissioned as second lieutenants upon graduation and incurred a four-year active duty obligation. Three classes entered the program either at the University of Texas or at East Tennessee State University beginning in 1972. The program ended in 1976 due to the post-Vietnam reductions. There had been
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about seven hundred applicants for seventy places. Sixty-nine students graduated, including thirty-two with honors.89
In 1972 Col. Hunter G. Taft, Jr., MSC, a sanitary engineer, became the first nonphysician to assume command of the U.S. Army Environmental Hygiene Agency, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. Twenty-two Sanitary Engineering Section officers were serving with the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command by 1973. By 1974 fifteen officers had completed doctoral training.90 Over 90 percent of sanitary engineers were registered professional engineers, and about a fourth were diplomates of the Environmental Engineering Intersociety Board or certified by related specialty boards.
Colonel Taft, as chief of the section, made several recommendations in 1974 to General Haggerty on the career management of Sanitary Engineering Section officers, especially the use of senior officers. In 1974 there were requirements for two colonels, but because the Medical Department promoted without regard to specialty, six officers held that grade. This had necessitated the assignment of four colonels to staff and command positions typically filled by administrative specialty officers. Hunter observed that as officers in his section became more senior they had fewer demands upon their technical expertise but more requirements for general managerial skills. He suggested that officers who desired to remain in strictly technical positions accept the limitation of a twenty-year career as reservists on active duty. However, those who desired career status in the Regular Army would apply with the understanding that their careers would include generalist-or broadening-assignments. Officers in the latter category would have opportunities for troop duty to prepare them for more varied positions at higher rank. Taft`s recommendation was not acted upon.91
Optometry
The number of optometrists on active duty increased from 174 in 1965 to 284 in 1972. Their role in Vietnam was important because Army studies reported that about a third of all soldiers needed eyeglasses, a need which also required manufacture of optical inserts for protective masks. Some officers served in roles outside of optometry. In 1965 Lt. Col. Robert W. Bailey, MSC, an optometrist, replaced a physician as the second commander of the U.S. Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory, a position he held until his retirement in 1976. Under Bailey`s leadership the laboratory developed the SPH-4 aviator helmet, which provided greatly improved hearing protection for Army helicopter crew members.92
Because they were unwilling to volunteer for military service in sufficient numbers, male optometrists joined male physicians, dentists, veterinarians, and nurses as clinical specialties drafted for service in Vietnam.93 The shortage prompted the surgeon general in August 1965 to ask for a draft of 100 optometrists. DOD did not grant that request, partly because some on the DOD staff feared it would build pressures to appoint optometrists in higher grades and to grant them special pay.94
As the surgeon general`s staff wrestled with the pros and cons of a draft, Col. Billy C. Greene, MSC, the chief of the Optometry Section, stepped up recruiting efforts at the optometry colleges. However, the shortage worsened. By January
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Army optometrist examines the eyes of an Eskimo patient at Chifornak, Togiak, Alaska, July 1973
1966, for example, Fitzsimons Army Medical Center reported a half-year wait for routine eye examinations. The draft remained an option, and Hamrick concluded it was the only solution;95 the Selective Service issued draft calls for optometrists, and four were drafted by mid-July. That precipitated a salute to military optometrists in a special issue of the JAOA.96
The grade of optometrists entering active duty became another point of contention. It was based on a formula in which optometrists received constructive service credit for active duty time based on the years spent in their training. The constructive credit rules helped, at least for a time. On the average, optometrists had six years of training, because the standard curriculum for the Doctor of Optometry degree required a minimum of two years of college plus four years of optometry school. Although some optometrists spent more than that in university training, they were credited with the average time spent by all optometry graduates. The six-year credit equated to two years beyond the standard college degree, and that counted for two years of service when they came into the Army.97
That was good enough during the height of the Vietnam War to ensure that optometrists would enter the Army as captains (the same as physicians, dentists, and veterinarians, whose training took longer),98 because the Vietnam buildup had compressed to twenty-four months the minimum time in the Army necessary for promotion to captain. However, in 1971 the time-in-grade promotion criteria were lengthened, and optometrists reverted to entering active duty as first lieutenants. They viewed this as unfair treatment, pointing out that their peers commissioned in the Public Health Service entered at the equivalent grade of captain rather than first lieutenant, with the expectation of making the equivalent of full colonel much more rapidly than in the Army.
The lower entry grade contributed to a growing unhappiness among optometrists. A $100-per-month specialty pay authorized for optometrists in 1971 failed to improve matters since the pay was still not competitive with private practice.99 Lt. Col. Budd Appleton, MC, the Surgeon General`s ophthalmology consultant, did not help either when he wrote a `dear doctor` letter to his constituents in which he referred to optometrists as `medical assistants,` a term which stirred up a small firestorm. Appleton later recanted and told his readers to `disregard the entire content` of the letter, but the damage had been done.100
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In 1974 Lt. Col. Gene M. Bourland, MSC, chief of the Optometry Section, solicited optometrists for their concerns. He received heated responses. A letter from the former chief of the section, Colonel Greene, summed up the major complaints: lack of upward mobility, restrictions on Medical Department staff assignments, limited education opportunities, lack of control over the optical laboratory program, unrealistic workloads, low promotion rates, lack of properly trained technicians, and inequities in pay and constructive credit.101
Colonel Bourland believed morale was the lowest it had been in twenty years. Optometrists complained that their requests for consultations with physicians on the hospital staff were not treated seriously, and there were senior optometrists with `tunnel vision` who refused to deal with the unmet need for care. Optometrists were independent practitioners in private practice, but in the Army they reported to ophthalmologists, who treated them as ancillary personnel.102
Many officers complained about prohibitions against an expanded practice. They desired to fit contact lenses, conduct visual training, and perform developmental and low-vision work. They found, instead, that the Army compelled them to provide quantity rather than quality and forced them into `quickie refractions.` Fort Bragg optometrists each performed twenty-seven exams a day. At the 196th Station Hospital in Belgium the figure was seventeen to twenty a day; many were complicated examinations for the older staff officers of the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers Europe. Officers at Fort Polk, Louisiana, averaged ten to fifteen minutes per patient, even though the professional rule of thumb was thirty.103
The level of unhappiness increased to the point that Lt. Gen. Richard R. Taylor, General Jennings` successor in 1974 as surgeon general, asked General Haggerty to personally review the situation. Haggerty flew to Denver, Colorado, where he met with Colonel Bourland and six other optometrists. The Denver group decided upon five basic recommendations: a reorganization of hospitals to make optometry an element separate from ophthalmology; entry grade constructive credit at the same rate as dentists and physicians; authority for the use of diagnostic drugs; enhanced promotion opportunity; and additional staffing for optometry clinics. Surprisingly enough, the group also recommended inclusion of MSC hospital executive officers in the rating chain of optometrists to improve their efficiency reports. Some of the complaints that surfaced in Denver were mundane but still irritating, including the desire for `Doctor` name tags on hospital white coats and parking privileges in the doctors` parking lot. The Ophthalmological Consultation Form was also a source of annoyance, because the title ignored optometry.104
The recommendations were on the chief`s desk as the period ended. At least there was a truce with the ophthalmology consultant. Appleton wrote Bourland in a positive tone and asked that they work together for those objectives they mutually supported. Bourland responded in kind, expressing his appreciation for Appleton`s cooperative attitude.105
Summary
The Medical Department`s reorganization opened position opportunities for the MSC, principally in new staff jobs, but unanticipated consequences made the
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chief`s job more difficult. The original idea of WORSAMS was to have a central medical organization reporting to the surgeon general, but that was not the reporting channel actually set up in 1973 for the commander of the Health Services Command. The surgeon general ended up in a weaker position than before the reorganization, especially since all the class II hospitals (medical centers) were transferred to the new command, and tensions between the two headquarters were inevitable. There was more discord than before between the surgeon general`s statutory responsibility as chief of the Medical Department and his authority to accomplish that mission, a problem shared by the surgeon general`s staff, including the MSC chief.
Position opportunities improved in some ways-the opening of the surgeon general`s executive officer position was the greatest single advance yet. But the lack of command opportunities for MSC officers remained a source of contention. A fundamental difficulty with the command policy was its departure from contemporary practice in civilian life and the desires of many Army physicians to practice medicine, not administration. The department`s objective since World War II had been to create a Medical Corps of competent clinicians. The emphasis on specialty training `on a par with the best in civilian medicine,` to use General Heaton`s words, had greatly influenced the assignment desires of Army physicians.106
Col. William Boyson concluded after he reviewed the results of his survey that an alternative would be for the department to designate administrative positions, including command, for MSC officers, but he believed that senior Medical Corps officers would balk.107 The issue centered on power, and that went beyond any survey. The deputy secretary of defense memorandum in 1973 ordering the military medical departments to broaden opportunity for command was a major shift in Department of Defense policy regarding operational medical units. DOD did not prohibit the use of physicians in those administrative positions, but stipulated that the military departments closely monitor such assignments. Officers used to the command environment of the Army`s divisional units and unschooled in the ways of Washington could not understand how the Medical Department simply ignored the order.
Medical supply operations in Vietnam, Korea, and Europe during this period underscored the primary need to maintain that system under medical control, operated by medical logisticians. The doctrinal point was confirmed in a series of Army and DOD studies after the disastrous experience of consolidating medical supply within the general supply system. The 1966 report of The Administrative Support Theater Army (TASTA) study underscored the point. The following year the Board of Inquiry on the Army Logistics System, the Brown Board, concluded that medical materiel must be managed by the Medical Department as a separate commodity, a recommendation that the Army enacted in 1968 with the establishment of Class VIII supply, a separate category. In 1970 the Besson Board, a DOD study of logistics support in Vietnam, concluded that the Army was the largest user of medical materiel and reasserted that the system had to be responsive to medical direction.108
The Besson Board raised an additional point, easily forgotten-the Army, as the nation`s ground force, routinely encountered medical logistics requirements
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that exceeded the customary demands of military units, to include support for refugees, displaced persons, and United States foreign aid programs. The point was demonstrated in the post-hostilities support in the Dominican Republic and throughout the war in Vietnam, as MSCs at all levels supported those requirements as well as medical care for enemy POWs and civilians. The United States depended upon the broad range of MSC administrative and scientific specialties in order to carry out its national objectives in both conflicts.
Redoubling of the star wars in 1965 resulted in the establishment of a brigadier general billet in 1966. This was important for MSC officers, yet its impact extended beyond the Army. Executives of the American College of Hospital Administrators believed it marked a turning point in the recognition of all uniformed Medical Service Corps officers as professional administrators. While the corps had benefited in the past from civil sector advances in professional recognition, this time the roles were, for a moment, reversed.109
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Notes
1Dominican Republic: Study, Capt Daniel G. McPherson, MSC, THU, OTSG, sub: The Role of the Army Medical Service in the Dominican Republic Crisis of 1965, 1968, USACMH; Jay Mallin, Caribbean Crisis (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1965), pp. 1-22; Bruce Palmer, Jr., `The Army in the Dominican Republic,` Army 15 (November 1965): 43-44; Rpt, 82d Abn Div, sub: Medical Service Activities, 1 January-31 December 1965, 28 Feb 66, USACMH.
2Department title: Heaton engineered legislation in 1968 that changed the awkward title Army Medical Service back to Army Medical Department. 82 Stat. 170, 4 June 1968; Interv, Col Vernon McKenzie with Ginn, 20 Jun 84.
3Brown Board: Chief of Staff Memorandum (CSM) 65-276, sub: Board of Inquiry on the Army Logistics System, 17 Jun 65, and Heaton to Maj Gen Laurence A. Potter, MC, Surg, USAREUR, 12 Oct 66, RG 112, accession 69A-2604, Box 17/38, NARA-WNRC; OTSG, Spread Sheet, Board of Inquiry on the Army Logistics System (Format B), Recommendation V-IV, p. III-35, par. 15.b.(3), sub: Development of Logistics Doctrine, 17 Mar 67, DASG-MS. WORSAMS: Memo, Brig Gen William A. Knowlton, Secretary of the General Staff, OCSA, sub: Study: World-Wide Organizational Structure for Army Medical Support (WORSAMS), CSM 69-75, 28 Feb 69; Office memo, Col. R. P. Campbell, MC, XO, OTSG, sub: Organization of the WORSAMS Study Group, 22 Aug 69; Rpt, OTSG, sub: WORSAMS Final Report, vol. 1, sub: Executive Brief, and vol. 2, sub: Analysis of Alternative Structures, 20 Aug 70, all in JML; SG Conferences, 20 Jan and 17 Mar 67.
4HSC: U.S. Army HSC, GO 1, Assumption of Command, and GO 2, Unit Organized, 1 Apr 73, DASG-MS. Academy of Health Sciences: The new building, begun in 1970, had 416,000 square feet of space. Unpublished paper, Eugene A. Venable, sub: A Brief History of the Evolution of the United States Army Academy of Health Sciences from 1920-1980, 21 May 81, DASG-MS, hereafter cited as Venable, AHS History, 1981.
5Change: Memo, Heaton for Dir, P&T, sub: Organizational Relationship, 13 Aug 65, MSC?USACMH.
6Chief`s concurrence: This was described as `jurisdictional cognizance,` a nice example of bureaucratic obtuseness.
7Key assignments: Office of the Chief, MSC, policy statement 614-6-1, sub: Assignment of Medical Service Corps Officers, 1 Dec 70; Hamrick to Ginn, 22 Aug 88, both in DASG-MS. Control: SG Conference, 25 Mar 66. While the department blocked assignments of MSC officers to positions outside the department (other than selected exceptions), so did it resist encroachment by other branches. See OTSG Form 301, Memo, Lt Col Jon N. Harris, MSC, Spec Proj Off, sub: Detail of Women`s Army Corps Officers and Warrant Officers to the AMEDD, 7 Sep 73, approved by Lt Gen Richard R. Taylor, TSG, DASG-MS. See also 10 U.S.C. sec. 3065 (e).
8Numbers: Rpt, Manpower Control Div, OTSG, Fiscal Year Reports, Medical Service Corps, FY 1959-67, hereafter cited as MSC Rpts FY 1959-67; Col William A. Hamrick, MSC, Ch, MSC, to Col Othmar Goriup, MSC, Ret., 3 May 66, both in DASG-MS; SG Conferences, 5 Nov 64, 30 Jul 65, 4 Jan and 15 Jul 66, and 11 Aug 67, USACMH; Hamrick, `Entering Second Half-Century of Service,` Medical Bulletin (May 1968): 165, in JML. The Senior Student Program numbered 100 in 1965. Another thirty-five spaces covered `Excess Leave` for medical students, a program begun in 1960 in which officers were detailed from active duty to medical school. In 1972 Congress established the Health Professions Scholarship Program for graduate students in the health professions at civilian universities. It also funded construction of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, the DOD medical school in Bethesda, Maryland. The MSC provided spaces for all Army students in those programs.
9Aviators: SG Conferences, 25 Jun 65, 3 and 10 Feb 67, 1 Nov and 13 Dec 68, and 17 Jan 69. General Heaton said it was `another shining example of why we do not want our MSC splintered.` Quoted words: Interv, Hamrick with Ginn, Washington, D.C., 7 May 83, DASG-MS.
10Warrants: DF, Brig Gen Conn L. Milburn, MC, Actg TSG, to DCSPER, sub: Employment of Warrant Officers as Medical Aviators in Air Ambulance Units, 23 Mar 65, RG 112, accession 69A-2603, Box 4/13, NARA-WNRC; Brig Gen Glenn J. Collins, MC, to DCSPER, sub: Army Aviator Requirements Study, 19 Apr 65, and DF CMT 2, TSG to DCSPER, sub: Officer and
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Warrant Officer Aviation Requirements, 28 Oct 65, both RG 112, accession 68A-3358, Box 17/33, NARA-WNRC.
11Numbers: Lt. Gen. Leonard Heaton, TSG, Statement Before the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, 8 September 1966, including backup papers, hereafter cited as Heaton, SASC Statement, plus date; Rpts, Manpower Control Division, OTSG (DASG-RMM), sub: AMEDD Officer Strengths, 29 April 1977, and the MSC From Fiscal Year 1975-Fiscal Year 1981, undated, both in DASG-MS; SG Conferences, 27 Jan 67 and 15 Aug 69; SG Report 1970, pp. 77, 104, and 1972, pp. 74, 108. The Navy MSC figure includes warrant officers, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and dietitians-specialties not included in the Army MSC total. 1967 numbers: Engelman, A Decade of Progress, p. 96.
12Buck-up letters: Chief, MSC, Policy 623-105-2, sub: Buck-Up Letters, 1 Dec 1970, DASG?MS.
Accessions: SG Conferences, 15 July 1966, 27 January 1967, 21 June 1968, and 28 February and 21 March 1969; Hamrick to Goriup, 3 May 1966; MSC Newsletters, 1 May 1968, 1970-73; OTSG, DA, procurement brochures `The Optometry Officer,` `Social Work Officers,` `Laboratory Sciences Officers,` etc., October 1968; Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army, full color brochure, `A Career of Distinction, The Medical Service Corps,` 1971, all in DASG-MS.
13Medical Field Service School: In 1968 the school was operating 70 classrooms and 70 laboratories; had a staff of 225 officers, 250 enlisted personnel, and 15 civilians; and was training 11,500 resident and 15,000 nonresident students. Venable, AHS History, 1981.
14Hamrick`s support: Hamrick to Lt Col Norman J. Edwards, DC, 15 Nov 65, RG 112, accession 68A-3358, Box 17/33, NARA-WNRC; SG Conference, 18 Jul 69. Education: Ch, MSC, Policy 350-219-2, sub: Long Term Civilian Schooling of Medical Service Corps Officers, Dec 70, DASG-MS. Quoted words: Interv, Hamrick with Ginn, Fort Sam Houston, Tex., 1 Nov 83, DASG-MS.
15Education: Hamrick to Goriup, 3 May 66; Heaton, SASC statement, 8 Sep 66; James G. Van Straten, `MSC Educational Legacy,` Medical Bulletin (October 1970): 26-27; SG Conference, 16 Sep 66; Rpt, Manpower Br, Pers Div, Office of Pers Ops, HQDA, sub: Report on Educational Levels of Army Commissioned Officers, Nov 68, folder 270, box 17/18, MSC-USACMH; MSC Newsletter, 1972. In 1963 slightly over 23 percent of MSCs had master`s degrees, 3.5 percent had academic doctoral degrees, and 2.68 percent had professional degrees at the doctoral level. Quoted words: Hamrick, `Entering Second Half-Century of Service,` p. 165.
16Baylor course: MFR, Lt Col Nathaniel H. Pond, MSC, Pers & Trng Dir, OTSG, sub: DA Board to Review Army School System (Haines Board), 21 Jul 65; Rpt, Lt Col David G. Dougherty, MSC, Adjutant (Adj), BAMC, sub: Proceedings of the DA Board to Review Army Officer Schools, 3 Sep 65, both in RG 112, accession 69A-2606, Box 40/81, NARA-WNRC; MSC Newsletter, 1 May 1968; Memo, Maj C. W. Amidon, Jr., MSC, sub: Ph.D. Time Limit Proposed, 12 Dec 68, DASG-MS; J.V. Williams, Dean, Baylor Graduate School, to Col John P. Valentine, MSC, Dir, Dept of Admin, MFSS, 27 Dec 68, DASG-MS; SG Conferences, 18 May 65 and 15 Aug 69; HCAD, AHS, listing of Army-Baylor students, 1960-1976, undated, DASG-MS; Ch, MSC, Policy 350-219-1, sub: Attendance of MSC Officers at the U.S. Army-Baylor University Program in Health Care Administration, 1 Jul 72, DASG-MS.
17Junior officers: MSC Newsletter, 1 May 1970.
18Vietnam: Interv, Col W. R. LeBourdais, MC, CO, 67th Med Gp, Da Nang, Vietnam, with Maj Donald A. Lacey, CO, 27th Mil Hist Det, 6 Jun 69; Interv, Col Richard B. Austin, MC, Cdr, 44th Med Bde, with Lacey, Vietnam, 16 Jun 69.
19New program: Boone Powell, a Baylor vice president, said it was `too complex a matter.` Powell, Baylor Univ, Dallas branch, to Valentine, Nov 67, DASG-MS.
20Courses: Rpt, Maj J. J. O`Hara, MSC, Adj, MFSS, sub: Information for DOD Study Group, April 1966, with Incl 4, sub: Officer Education Study; MFSS, Program of Instruction 6-8-C20, sub: Army Medical Department Basic Course (MSC Officers), April 1971, all in DASG-MS; Rpt, OTSG, sub: Professional Education and Training Committee Meeting, Main Navy Bldg, 14 Sep 66, RG 112, accession 69A-2606, Box 40/81, NARA-WNRC. Haines Board: Named for its head, Lt. Gen. Ralph G. Haines, Jr. Rpt, Brig Gen Charles B. Smith, sub: Department of the Army Board to Review Army Officer Schools, 19 Jul 65; MFR, Lt Col Nathaniel H. Pond, MSC, Pers & Trng
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Dir, OTSG, same sub: 21 Jul 65; Rpt, Lt Col David G. Dougherty, MSC, Adj, BAMC, sub: Proceedings of the DA Board to Review Army Officer Schools, 3 Sep 65; Rpt, OTSG, sub: Professional Education and Training Committee Meeting, 14 Sep 66, all in RG 112, accession 69A-2606, Box 40/81, NARA-WNRC; Engelman, A Decade of Progress, pp. 128-31.
21Training: Memo, Maj Thomas H. Korte, MSC, for Col Adams, XO, OTSG, 25 Oct 73; Ch, MSC, Policy 350-10-1, sub: C&GSC/AFSC Selections, 1 Dec 70; Information paper, Maj Leopold, U.S. Army Military Personnel Center (MILPERCEN), sub: U.S. Army War College Corresponding Studies Program, 15 Aug 86, all in DASG-MS; `Medical Service Corps,` Newsletter of the U.S. Army Medical Department 1 (October 1970): 19, JML. The MSC section of the department`s Newsletter was used as the corps newsletter throughout its publication.
22Quoted words: Interv, Brig Gen John F. Haggerty, MSC, Ret., with Ginn, Washington, D.C., 7 May 83, DASG-MS.
23Assignments: Lt Gen Melvin Zais, CG, Third Army, to TSG, 21 May 73; 2d Ind to Lt Gen J. Hay, CG, XVIII Abn Corps, 7 Jun 73; 1st Ind to Col James B. Vought, Cdr, I Corps Support Command, sub: Experience, Quantity and Quality of Medical Service Corps Officers Assigned to the 55th Medical Group, 4 May 73; Haggerty, Ginn interv, 7 May 83, all in DASG-MS.
24Quoted words: Haggerty, Ginn interv, 7 May 83, DASG-MS.
253 percent: SG Conference, 3 May 68. DOD policy: Memo, Elliot L. Richardson, Sec Def, for Secs of the Mil Depts, sub: Strengths of Medical and Dental Officers, 2 May 73, DASG-MS.
26Substitution: MSC Newsletter, 1970; Memo, Col Robert P. Campbell, MC, XO, OTSG, for Brig Gen Jennings, DSG, sub: MC vs MSC as Executive to the Surgeon General, 23 Jul 69, DASG-MS, including quoted words; SG Conference, 25 Jul 69. Support: Written interv, Col William C. Luehrs, MSC, Ret., with Ginn, 5 Nov 84, DASG-MS. Luehrs was a pharmacist who served as an infantry officer in World War II and returned to active duty after the war as a Pharmacy Corps officer. He served as a medical battalion commander in Germany from 1961 to 1962 during the Berlin crisis and, an Army-Baylor graduate, as executive officer of three hospitals.
27Quoted words: William A. Boyson, `Why Doctors Get Out,` Journal of the Armed Forces 105 (30 September 1967): 10. Also see Ltr to the editor, Clayton Yeutter, `MSC Officers at Helm of Medical Institutions?` Journal of the Armed Forces 105 (November 1967): 3.
28Quoted words: Memo, William P. Clements, Dep Sec Def, for Secs of Mil Depts, sub: Staff and Command Assignments of Health Professionals, 1 May 73, DASG-MS.
29Battalion command: The plan was briefed to the Surgeon General`s Policy Council in February by Col. Knute Tofte-Nielsen, MSC, Ret. See Col Robert E. Adams, MSC, XO, OTSG, sub: Minutes of The Surgeon General`s Policy Council Meeting, 20 Feb 73; Briefing Notes, Tofte?Nielsen, Doctrine and International Activities Br, OTSG, MSC, 12 Feb 73; Memo, Maj Gen Ralph L. Foster, SGS, OCSA, for TSG, sub: Combat Division Medical Structure Modification, 27 Jul 73; Msg, DA 271738Z Jul 73, same sub; Tofte-Nielsen, Ginn interv, 23 Oct 84. The final policy was reaffirmed by Brig. Gen. Surindar Bhaskar, DC, Dir Pers, OTSG, in 6th Ind to Ltr, sub: Nomination for the 7th Medical Battalion Commander (19 February 1975), 19 May 75, all in DASG-MS.
30Insignia: Ltr, Lt Col John A. Kneepkins, MSC, to Hamrick, 19 Aug 65, RG 112, accession 68A-3358, Box 17/33, NARA-WNRC; Hamrick to Ginn, 22 Aug 88, DASG-MS. Society: Col Richard F. Neitzel, MSC, COS, 8th Med Cmd (Prov), to Ginn, 2 Nov 83, DASG-MS.
311962: Spurred by Kennedy`s Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara.
32Branch chiefs: Hewes, From Root to McNamara, pp. 364, 406. Loss of power: Maj Gen V. P. Mock, SGS, CSM 64-127, sub: Technical Missions, Structure and Career Development, 31 Mar 64, hereafter cited as CSM 64-127, 31 Mar 64; General Morrison notes that as TSG`s representative to the study committee, he was able, with Heaton`s support, to preserve the basic organization of OTSG, which would have been transferred from DCSLOG to DCSPER staff supervision. Morrison to Ginn, 18 Aug 88.
33TECSTAR: SG Conferences, 10, 15, and 25 Jun 65; General Harold K. Johnson, CSA, `Technical Career Structure of the Army,` Army Information Digest (November 1964): 5-8; CSM 64-127, 31 Mar 64; DF, Col Walter M. Vann, GS, Dep Chm, TECSTAR Working Group, sub: Project TECSTAR, 19 May 64; Memo, Col Charles H. Moseley, Dir, Pers & Trng, OTSG, for TSG, sub: Project TECSTAR, 11 Jun 65; Memo, Col Ralph G. LeMoon, MSC, Ch, Spec Proj Off,
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OTSG, for Dir, Pers and Trng, OTSG, and Ch, MSC, sub: Technical Missions, Structure and Career Development (TECSTAR), 16 Jul 64; DF CMT 2, Heaton to DCSPER, sub: Project TECSTAR Outline Plan, 30 Jul 64; Memo, Col Mahlon E. Gates, GS, DCSPER, for Dir Mil Pers, sub: Formats A&B, TECSTAR, and Memo, Moseley for TSG, sub: Current Status of Project TECSTAR, 30 Sep 64; Memos, LeMoon, sub: TECSTAR, 6, 7 Oct 64; Memo, Lt Col Leigh F. Wheeler, Sr., MSC, Ch, Directives & Pol Br, OTSG, sub: TECSTAR, 7 Oct 64; Memo, Moseley for Heaton, sub: TECSTAR, 22 Oct 64; Memo, Moseley, sub: Status Report on AMEDS [Army Medical Service] Participation in TECSTAR, 23 Nov 64; Ray E. Brown to Heaton, 19 Jul 65; Ltr, Heaton to Maj Gen George M. Powell, MC, CG, BAMC, and twenty-four other addressees, 22 Jul 65, including statement, sub: Position of the Surgeon General on Project TECSTAR; Heaton to Comptroller of the Army (COA) and DCSPER, sub: COA Recommendations on TECSTAR (drafted by LeMoon), 4 Aug 65; Memo, Moseley for TSG, sub: Project TECSTAR, 13 Aug 65; Col Arnold L. Ahnfeldt, MC, Dir, THU, OTSG, to Heaton, 24 Aug 65; Brig Gen Charles A. Corcoran, SGS, CSM 65-576, sub: Project TECSTAR, 22 Nov 65, hereafter cited as CSM 65-576; Hamrick, Ginn interv, 7 May 83; Benade, Ginn interv, 25 Jan 84, all in DASG-MS.
34Heaton: SG Conference, 30 Jul 64; DF, Heaton to DCSPER, sub: TECSTAR Detailed Plan, 21 Jun 65 (drafted by Col LeMoon and called `a magnificent paper` by Heaton); Memo, Heaton for COA, sub: COA Recommendations on TECSTAR, 4 Aug 65, both in DASG-MS. Quoted words: DF, Heaton to DCSPER, sub: CSA Recommendations on Project TECSTAR, 30 Jul 64, DASG-MS. Speak out: Heaton to Powell, 22 Jul 65.
35Benade: `Indispensable Man,`Army Times, 12 June 1963. Also see `Col. Cited, Picked for Post in USAREUR,` Stars and Stripes, 6 June 1966; OTSG News Clip, 10 Jul 62, `Colonel Benade is `Mr. Big` in Armed Forces Pay Studies,` extracted from Army, Navy, Air Force Journal and Register, 7 July 1962, DASG-MS. Richards: See Benade, Ginn interv and Morrison, Ginn interv, 7 May 83.
36Quoted words: Hamrick to Col Ralph D. Arnold, MSC, XO, HQ Eighth Army, 14 Jun 65, RG 112, accession 68A-3358, Box 17/33, NARA-WNRC.
37Ray Brown: DF, Heaton to DCSPER, sub: TECSTAR Detailed Plan, (drafted by Lt Col Lewis Huggins, MSC, Spec Proj Off, OTSG), 21 Jun 65 with 24 incls, including: Rpt, Ray E. Brown, sub: Implications of the Proposal by the TECSTAR Study Group to the Army Medical Care Program, 18 Jun 65; Studies, sub: Codification of MSC Officers` Positions and Trends in Civilian Health Service and Their Relationship to the Army Medical Service; and DA Form 1598, sub: TECSTAR Detailed Plan; Hamrick, Ginn interv, 7 May 83, all in DASG-MS. Brown`s active role in support of military hospital administration was later commemorated by the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States, which established the Ray E. Brown Award for `outstanding accomplishments in Federal Health Care Management.`
38Quoted words: Brown to Heaton, 19 Jul 65; Brown rpt, 18 Jun 65.
39Quoted words: Heaton to DCSPER, 21 Jun 65.
40Quoted words: CSM 65-576. TECSTAR was not to `be construed as DA policy nor are its conclusions or recommendations to be considered as approved.`
41TECSTAR and stars: Col Arnold L. Ahnfeldt, MC, Dir, THU, to Heaton, 24 Aug 65, DASG-MS. Ten branches: Quartermaster, Dental, Transportation, Chemical, Adjutant General, Finance, Veterinary, Military Police, Judge Advocate General, and Chaplain Corps. MFR, LeMoon, sub: H.R. 11488, 89th Congress, A Bill `To Authorize the Grade of Brigadier General in the Medical Service Corps of the Regular Army, and for Other Purposes,` 6 Dec 65, DASG-MS.
42MSC star: SG Conferences, 22 Jul, 12 Aug, and 16 and 30 Sep 66; Benade, Ginn interv, 25 Jan 84; Interv, Hamrick with Dwight D. Oland, 5 Nov 79, USACMH; Hamrick, Ginn interv, 7 May 83; McKenzie, Ginn interv, 20 Jun 84; Summary sheet, Benade, sub: Request for Allocation of One Brig. Gen. Space to the Medical Service Corps, 19 Apr 61; Cyrus R. Vance, Sec Army, to Rep Carl Vinson, Chm, HASC, 4 Sep 62; Rep Durwood G. Hall, Missouri, to TSG (DSG, Maj Gen McGibony), 13 Oct 65; McGibony to Hall, 28 Oct 65; CMT 2, Col David Penson, AGC, Comptroller, TAGO, 25 Oct 65, to DF, Lt Col Louis J. Prost, GS, Ch, Gen Off Br, DCSPER, sub: H. R. 11488 . . . , 19 Oct 65; Memo, Heaton for DCSPER, same sub. (includes draft DA rpt), 3 Dec 65; MFR, LeMoon, same sub., 6 Dec 65; DF, Prost, same sub. (includes DA rpt), to TAG, 11 Jan 66, with CMT 2 to Col LeMoon, Spec Proj, OTSG, 12 Jan 66; Summary sheet, Maj Gen J. C. Lambert, TAG, sub., DA Report on H. R. 11488, 89th Cong., 2d sess., 25 Jan 66; Memo, Stanley
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R. Resor, Sec Army, for CSA, sub: Statutory Grade Authorizations for Specific Positions, 1 Apr 66; Memo, Gen Creighton W. Abrams, Acting CSA, for Sec Army, same sub, 15 Apr 66; Resor to L. Mendel Rivers, Chm, HASC, 29 Apr 66; Hamrick to Col Othmar F. Goriup, MSC, Ret., 3 May 66; Statement, Heaton before the House Committee on Armed Services, sub: H. R. 11488, 20 Jul 66; Heaton, SASC statement, 8 Sep 66; MFR, LeMoon, sub: House Armed Services Subcommittee no. 1, Hearings on H.R. 420 and H.R. 11488, both 89th Congress, 20 Jul 66, all in DASG-MS; PL 89-603, 24 Sep 66; `Grade of Brigadier General-Medical Service Corps,` Congressional Record, House of Representatives (15 August 1966): 18453-4, D757-8; Interv, Hamrick with Col Ernest J. Sylvester, MSC, AWC and USAMHI Senior Officers Oral History Program, Feb 84, USAMHI. Hays: McKenzie, Ginn interv notes, 17 May 83, DASG-MS.
43Support: Hamrick, Ginn interv, 1 Nov 83. Heaton said the MSC was `a very important cog in our everyday activities.` Heaton, McLean interv, 7 Dec 78. Quoted words: Heaton to DCSPER, 3 Dec 65; Heaton, SASC statement, 8 Sep 66.
44Frightened: Hall to McGibony, 13 Oct 65. Philbin`s bill, H.R. 11488, was identical to H.R. 11727 submitted by Congressman L. Mendel Rivers, South Carolina, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
45Stars: It was also a zero-sum game: the SASC had a limit of 475 active duty flag officers for all the Services.
46Abrams` support: Abrams to Sec Army, 15 Apr 66.
47Quoted words: Hamrick, Oland interv, 5 Nov 79.
48Testimony: Heaton, when questioned, supported the bill in testimony McGibony called `superb.` As Hamrick recalled, `it was very obvious when the congressmen and the senators began to ask him questions that he was in favor of it.` Heaton said he justified his request for a star based on the `scope and magnitude` of the chief`s position. SG Conference, 16 Sep 66; Hamrick, Oland interv; Heaton, SASC statement, 8 Sep 66.
49Star billet: DF, Col Robert P. Campbell, MC, XO, OTSG, to Gen Off Br, DCSPER, sub: General Officer Job Description, 23 Nov 66, RG 112, accession 69A-2604, Box 19/38, NARA?WNRC. Quoted words: Hamrick, Oland interv.
50Stars: Morrison to Col John Lada, MSC, 12 Jul 72, including Fact Sheet, sub: U.S. Army Medical Service Corps, 1972, with GO and MSC figures based on OPO STAT REPT-7, 31 Dec 71, folder 40, box 4/18, MSC-USACMH.
51Study: Study, Lt Col John W. Bullard, MSC, DASG-MS, sub: Requirements for Medical Service Corps Branch General Officers, 1970, DASG-MS.
52Fuqua: H.R. 15201,Congressional Record, House of Representatives (30 May 1972), pp. 1284 and 19118; U.S. Congress, House, Digest of Public General Bills and Resolutions, 30 May 1972, 92d Cong., 2d sess., Part 11: E-343. Quoted words: Morrison to Lada, 12 Jul 72.
53Numbers: CMT 2, Col Griffin, MC, XO, OTSG, to DCSPER, sub: Manpower and Personnel Studies, 30 Sep 65, RG 112, accession 68A-3358, Box 17/33, NARA-WNRC; MSC Rpts FY 1959-67; Rpt, DASG-RM, sub: MSC Requirements, Authorized, Actual, FY 1976-81, both in DASG-MS. A presidentially directed commission required DOD to identify positions it could convert from military to civilian. OTSG reported very little potential in the MSC administrative specialties. Memo, Lyndon Johnson for Robert S. McNamara, Sec Def, 1 Aug 65, included in DCSPER Rpt, sub: Military-Civilian Substitutability Staff Study, 21 Aug 65, and DF, Maj Gen James T. McGibony, Actg TSG, same sub, 1 Nov 65 with Staff Study, OTSG, sub: Feasibility of Converting Medical Service Corps Officer Positions to Civilian Positions, 30 Oct 65, RG 112, accession 69A-2603, Box 4/13, NARA-WNRC; SG Conferences, 29 Mar and 3 May 68.
54Automated data systems: SG Conference, 13 Jan 67; OTSG Lessons Learned interv, Maj Max E. Hoyt, MSC, 7 Sep 67, USACMH; Notes of discussion, Col James R. Young, MSC, Cdr, U.S. Army Patient Administration Systems and Biostatistics Activity, with Ginn, 25 Sep 84, DASG?MS.
55Comptroller: SG Conference, 8 Sep 67; Unpublished article, Col Milton C. Devolites, MSC, Ret., `The Organization of the Resources Management Directorate, Office of The Surgeon General, Department of the Army,` 3 Oct 84; Rpt, Syracuse University, sub: Army Comptrollership Program, 1991; Fact Sheet, Syracuse University, sub: Synopsis of the Army Comptrollership Program (draft), 1990, all in DASG-MS; MSC Newsletter, 1970. The consoli?
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dation included Nepthune Fogelberg`s Budget Division and Isaac Cogan`s Programs Coordination Office.
56Inexperience: CMT 2, TSG to ACSFOR, 16 Mar 67, including 32d Medical Depot Opnl Rpt, 10 Nov 66, and TAG Ltr, 2 Feb 67, RG 112, accession 70A-2772, Box 12/43, NARA-WNRC; Interv, Col Charles C. Pixley, MC, Cdr, 68th Med Gp, with McPherson, Vietnam, 23 Jun 67; Wier, McPherson interv, 17 Jun 67; Interv, Col. W. R. LeBourdais, MC, with Lacey, 1969; OTSG Lessons Learned interv, Col Jesse N. Butler, MSC, Ch, Med Supply Div, 14 Nov 68, all in USACMH.
57Quoted words: Col Marvin A. Ware, MSC, PS&O, OTSG, in Rand, OTSG interv.
58Assessment: Butler, Lessons Learned interv. King: Notes of telephone interv. CW4 W. B. King, Ret., with Ginn, 8 Feb 92, DASG-MS.
59MAST: SG Report, 1970, p. 121; Information paper, OTSG, sub: MAST, Dec 84, DASG-MS.
60Hospital administration: Neuhauser, Coming of Age, p. 52.
61The laws: PL 89-749, The Comprehensive Health Planning and Public Health Services Amendments of 1966, 80 Stat. 1180, linked hospital construction with regional planning. PL 92-603, The Professional Standards Review Organization Act of 1972, 86 Stat. 1329, set up local agencies to pass on the appropriateness of hospital admissions. PL 92-666, The Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973, 87 Stat. 914, provided start-up funds for HMOs, insurance plans that provide prepaid benefits to subscribers using providers contracted or owned by the plan.
62Changes: See Neuhauser, Coming of Age, pp. 66-71; Interv, Richard J. Stull, ACHA President, 1972-78, with Lewis E. Weeks, 9 Apr 80, American Hospital Association, copy in AHA Library, Chicago; Charles V. Letourneau, `Hospital Administration: A True Profession,` Hospital Administration 13 (Winter 1968): 51-67. Meeting topics: News release, OTSG, sub: Hospital Administrators Plan for the Future, 9 May 66, RG 112, accession 70B-2773, Box 38/55, NARA?WNRC.
63ACHA: SG Conference, 16 Sep 66; Stull, Weeks interv; Lt Col Glenn R. Willauer, MSC, USAF, Regent`s Newsletter, June 1989, DASG-MS.
64Operations officers: Interv, Col Robert D. Pilsbury, MC, with Lacey, 1 May 69. Actions: Hamrick to Lt Col William A. Bost, MSC, 1 Jun 65, and Lt Col John A. Kneepkins, MSC, to Hamrick, 19 Aug 65, RG 112, accession 68A-3358, Box 17/33, NARA-WNRC; Brig. Gen. Manley C. Morrison, `Medical Service Corps,` Newsletter of the U.S. Army Medical Service 1 (October 1970): 19.
65EFMB: Interv, Col Roy S. Church, MSC, Ret., with Ginn, Fort McPherson, Ga., 9-10 Nov 83; Maj Gen T. McGibony, Actg TSG, to DCSPER, sub: Expert Field Medical Badge, 2 Nov 65, RG 112, accession 687A-3358, Box 17/33, NARA-WNRC. Panama: Stanley S. Johnson, `Lab for Living,` Soldiers 28 (July 1973): 22-25. History: Robert J. Parks, Medical Training in World War II, volume in the series Medical Department of the United States Army in World War II (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army, 1974).
66Facilities planning: `Army Officer Aids Plans for Guatemalan Hospital,` Southern Command News, 5 January 1968, DASG-MS.
67Ribbon: Called the `Alive in `65` ribbon because it was issued to all military personnel beginning in 1965. Quoted words: Notes of discussion, Lt Col John E. Persons, MSC, Ret., with Ginn, Dustoff Association Meeting, San Antonio, Tex., 1 Mar 86, DASG-MS.
68Pharmacy: J. B. Lischke to Sen Vance Hartke, 14 Aug 65, and Col Herschel E. Griffin, MC, XO, OTSG, to Office of the Chief of Legislative Liaison (OCLL), sub: Draft of Reply to Sen. Hartke on Behalf of Mr. J.B. Lischke, 7 Sep 65, RG 112, accession 68A-3558, Box 17/33, NARA?WNRC; MSC Newsletter, 1970-73; Heaton, SASC statement, 8 Sep 66; Lt Col Alfred W. Gill, MSC, Ch, Pharm Br, AHS, Lesson Plan 37-365-320, sub: History and Traditions of Army Pharmacy, 1986, hereafter cited as Gill, Army Pharmacy, both in DASG-MS; SG Conference, 30 Jun 67; Scott C. Martin, `Oncology Pharmacy Residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center,` Military Medicine 153 (August 1988): 41.
69Libby and Tweito: MSC Newsletter, June 1971; Gill, Army Pharmacy.
70MAS numbers: MSC Rpts, FY 1959-67, DASG-MS; SG Report, 1972, p. 110.
71Oral health: SG Conferences, 31 Jan and 6 Jun 69.
72Landstuhl group: Capt David J. Anderson, MSC, et al., 2d Gen Hosp, to TSG, sub: Optimum Utilization of Allied Science Personnel in the Army Medical Department, 27 Sep 72,
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with comments to Ch, MSC, including Col Donald H. Hunter, MSC, Ch, MAS, 9 Nov 72, DASG-MS.
73Plague: Dan C. Cavanaugh, `Specific Effect of Temperature Upon Transmission of the Plague Bacillus by the Oriental Rat Flea, Xenopsylla Cleopis,` American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 20 (March 1971): 264. The WRAIR team served in Vietnam from 1963 to 1971; see Albertson, MSCs in Medical Research and Development.
74R&D: MSC Newsletters, 1970-73; Engelman and Joy, Two Hundred Years of Military Medicine, pp. 41-48; Rpt, THU, OTSG, sub: Chronology: U.S. Army Contributions to Civilian Medicine, 1971; Ltr, Lt Gen Charles Pixley, TSG, sub: Letter of Instructions to the Nominating Board Considering Officers for Appointment as Assistant Chief, Medical Service Corps, with incls, 6 Oct 80; Curriculum vitae, Col Sidney Gaines, 1969, all in DASG-MS; Joseph Israeloff, `Victories in Army Medicine,` Army Digest (July 1970): 26. Cavanaugh: Dan C. Cavanaugh et al., `Plague,` in Andre J. Ognibene and O`Neill Barrett, Jr., General Medicine and Infectious Diseases, volume in the series Internal Medicine in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Surgeon General and U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1982), pp. 167-97; Interv, Cavanaugh with Maj Eric G. Daxon, MSC, Washington, D.C., 17 Apr 85, DASG-MS; Engelman and Joy, Two Hundred Years of Military Medicine, p. 40.
75Dispute: See account in Albertson, MSCs in Research and Development. The controversy began in 1974. Over eighty letters had been written to Congress at the time of the meeting with General Taylor, and articles were appearing in journals and newspapers. For example, see American Society for Microbiology News (ASM News), March, June, and August 1976, and U.S. Medicine, 15 May 1976. A series of actions were interpreted as `the gradual erosion of civilian scientists in positions of authority.` `Army Surgeon General Acts Against Civilian Scientists,` ASM News 42 (March 1976): 133. The Medical Department was said to have a `management philosophy which downgrades the role of civilian scientists.` `Civilian Scientists,` ASM News 42 (June 1976): 350.
76VEE: Col Trygve O. Berge, MSC, draft section, sub: Virology and Immunology, 1958 MSC History Project, p. 17, DASG-MS; MSC Newsletters, 1970-73.
77Spiker: Col. James Spiker, MSC, to Ginn, 5 Aug 88, DASG-MS. Camp: Col John P. Canby, MC, Cdr, USAMEDDAC, Fort Knox, to TSG, sub: Naming of the Blood Bank Center, USAMEDDAC, Fort Knox, 2 Aug 83, with CMT 2, Brig Gen France F. Jordan, Ch, MSC, 7 Oct 83, DASG-MS; Engelman and Joy, Two Hundred Years of Military Medicine, p. 41.
78Psychology: Brochure, OTSG, `Graduate Student Program in Clinical Psychology, Counseling Psychology, Experimental Psychology,` Oct 68; Unpublished paper, Harold D. Rosenheim, Ph.D., "A History of the Uniformed Clinical Psychologist in the U.S. Army,` presented to the American Psychological Association (APA), Montreal, 2 Sep 80, and Rosenheim to Ginn, 18 Sep 84; Col Robert S. Nichols, Ph.D., MSC, Dir, Human Resource Div, U.S. Army War College, to Haggerty, 12 Aug 74; Col Charles A. Thomas, MSC, Ret., `Contributions of and Challenges Faced by AMEDD Psychology: 1950`s-1970`s,` Proceedings of the 1982 AMEDD Psychology Symposium, 14-19 Nov 82, Fort Gordon, Ga., DASG-MS. Thomas: Lt Col Donald D. Sammis, USAF, Asst Air Attache, U.S. Embassy, Paris, to Thomas, 28 Feb 74; Thomas to Mlle. Adrienne Joffre, 25 Mar 74; OTSG Form 576, Col Charles A. Thomas, MSC, sub: Report on Leave Activities, 13 Jun 74; D. Lucibello, Associacion Republicaine des Anciens Combattants, to Thomas, 26 Mar 1976; Thomas to Ginn, 24 Feb 1988, with enclosures; Notes of fonecon, Ginn with Ms. Diana Brooks, U.S. Embassy, Paris, 19 Apr 88, all in DASG-MS. Thomas was flying as a bomber pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force. Wounded, he was hidden in Paris by Mlle. Adrienne Joffre, a cousin of Marshal Joseph Joffre, the leader of the French delegation to the United States in 1917 that had requested U.S. help in their war with Germany. In June 1974 the City of Paris invited Thomas to ceremonies honoring the French Resistance on the thirtieth anniversary of the liberation of France. He received the Silver Medal of the City of Paris.
79Quoted words: Col. Franklin Del Jones, MC, `Behavioral Sciences in a Changing Army,` in Jones, David L. Willard, and Barry N. Blum, `Proceedings of AMEDD Behavioral Sciences Seminar,` FAMC, 23 Mar 79, Document ADA 87842, Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC), Defense Logistics Agency, Cameron Station, Va., hereafter cited as Jones, `Proceedings,` 1979.
80Audiology: Fact sheet, OTSG, sub: Audiologists and the U.S. Army, Jul 71; Briefing, Maj Roy K. Sedge, Ph.D., MSC, TSG Audiology Consultant, for Brig Gen J. Young, Ch, MSC, 8 Feb 86;
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Ltr, Maj Gen. Verne L. Bowers, TAG, sub: Establishment and Utilization of Audiologist (MOS 3360) Positions in Hearing Conservation Programs, Feb 72, hereafter cited as TAG Ltr, Hearing Conservation, 1972; Young to Sedge, 29 Apr 79, concerning draft Memo for TSG, sub: Utility of 68Ms (Audiologists) for Hearing Conservation and Clinical Programs, with five incls; MSC Newsletter, 1972, all in DASG-MS; TSG to Rep Paul G. Rogers, 15 Sep 69, response to 21 Aug ltr, RG 112, accession 72A-3501, Box 19/55, NARA-WNRC; AR 40-5, `Health and Environment,` 24 Sep 74, PL; Frank Murray, `Soldiers Deafened by Weapons` Roar,` Washington Star, 21 August 1969.
81Hearing conservation: TAG Ltr, Hearing Conservation, 1972; AR 40-5.
82Special pay: Seward P. Nyman, D.Sc., Exec Dir, APA, to Heaton, 22 and 23 Sep 65, and Heaton`s response, 8 Oct 65, RG 112, accession 68A-3358, Box 17/33, NARA-WNRC; Shirley C. Fisk, M.D., Dep Asst Sec Def (Health and Medical) to Rep Charles S. Grubser, 16 Feb 66, and Heaton to Sen George C. Murphy, 24 Feb 66, both responses to Ltrs, Ronald F. Noble, D. P., Cupertino, Calif., 27 Jan and 8 Feb 66, RG 112, accession 69A-2604, Box 19/38, NARA-WNRC.
83Boards: `Look at these people very closely. Give them an opportunity.` Hamrick, Sylvester interv.
84Social work: Lt Col Anthony C. Mastrolia, MSC, P&T Div, OTSG, to Lt Col Charles L. Franklin, MSC, Office of Surgeon, HQ, Fourth Army, 30 Dec 65, RG 112, accession 68A-3358, Box 17/33, NARA-WNRC; Matthew D. Parrish, `The Changing Field of Army Psychiatry,` 1968, in Franklin D. Jones, ed., M.D. Parrish, M.D.: Collected Papers, 1955-1970 (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army, 1981), Doc ADA-108069, DTIC; SG Conferences, 18 Jun 65 and 22 Jul 66; Rpt, Ross, USMEDCOMV, sub: AMSAR CY 1971, USACMH; Rpt, Academy of Health Sciences (AHS), U.S. Army, sub: Current Trends in Army Social Work, 4-8 Mar 74, Doc ADA-058124, DTIC. Consultants: Brochure, OTSG, `Social Work Officers in the Medical Service Corps,` Oct 68, DASG-MS.
85ACS: Lt Col Donald A. Myles, MSC, to Ginn, 15 May 83; Myles, The Army Community Services Program, chapter in `A Survey of Community Service Centers: Welfare Problems, Services, Personnel and Resources,` Ph.D. dissertation, Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., 1970; Lt Col William S. Rooney, MSC, Ret., to Ginn, 22 Feb 85, all in DASG-MS. Careers: Samuel G. Duggins, `A Social Work Career,` article in Rpt, AHS, sub: Army Social Work Current Trends, 6-11 May 72, pp. 164-69, JML.
861858: Florence Nightingale, Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army (London: Harrison and Sons, 1858), p. 228.
87Sanitary engineering: MSC Newsletter, 1972; DF, Col Hunter G. Taft, Jr., MSC, sub: Ph.D. Training for Sanitary Engineering Officers, Sep 74, DASG-MS.
88Entomology: OTSG, Annual General Inspection (AGI), Armed Forces Pest Control Board, 4 Jan 65, RG 112, accession 68A-375, Box 10/40, NARA-WNRC; Brochure, OTSG, `Entomologists,` Oct 68, DASG-MS; TSG to Rep Paul Findly, RG 112, accession 72A-3501, Box 19/55, NARA-WNRC.
89EHSEEP: Rpt, Lt Col James M. Morgan, Jr., MSC, USAR, sub: A Review of the Current Status of Environmental and Sanitary Engineering Officers in the United States Army Reserve, July 1974; Rpt, Morgan, sub: Suggestions for Recruiting Environmental Science and Sanitary Engineering Officers into the Medical Service Corps, April 1978, all in DASG-MS.
90Sanitary engineers: Hamrick to Goriup, 3 May 66; Brochure, OTSG, `Sanitary Engineers,` Oct 68; Lt Col John F. Erskine, MSC, to Ginn, 11 Aug 83, including news clippings; MSC Newsletter, 1972, all in DASG-MS; OTSG, Annual General Inspection (AGI), U.S. Army Environmental Hygiene Agency, 31 Mar 65, RG 112, accession 68A-375, Box 10/40, NARA?WNRC; SG Conference, 3 Jan 67; DF, Col Ralph J. Walsh, MSC, HQ, USARV, sub: End of Tour Report, 20 Nov 69, USACMH.
91Recommendations: Col Hunter G. Taft, Jr., MSC, to Haggerty, 8 Aug 74, with five incls, DASG-MS.
92Optometry: CMT 2, Col. Herschel E. Griffin, MC, XO, OTSG, to DCSPER, sub: Manpower and Personnel Studies, 30 Sep 65, RG 112, accession 68A-3358, Box 17/33, NARA?WNRC; Hamrick to Goriup, 3 May 66, DASG-MS; Brochure, OTSG, `The Optometry Officer,` Oct 68, DASG-MS; Thomas, USARV Senior Officer Debrief, 12 Nov 70; OTSG, AGI, U.S. Army
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Aeromedical Research Unit (USAARU), 15 Jan 65, RG 112, accession 68A-375, Box 10/40, NARA-WNRC; `37% of Soldiers Wear Glasses,` Army Reporter(U.S. Army, Vietnam) 5 (6 January 1969); Rpt, THU, sub: Chronology: U.S. Army Contributions to Civilian Medicine, 1971, both in DASG-MS.
93Draft: Women could not be drafted.
94Optometry draft: HR. 3313, `To Provide Career Incentives for Certain Professionally Trained Officers of the Armed Forces,` 89th Cong., 1st sess., 2 January 1965; TSG to TAG, sub: Special Call #37 for Physician, Dentist and Veterinarian Registrants, 29 Sep 65; News release 635-65, OASD (Public Affairs), `Selective Service to Provide 1,979 Medical Personnel Beginning in January 1966,` 22 Sep 65; Summary sheet, Brig Gen Frederick J. Hughes, Jr., MC, Actg TSG, forwarding Memo to ASD (Manpower), sub: Drafting of Optometrists, including MFR, Hamrick, 22 Oct 65, and Memo, Thomas A. Morris, ASD (Manpower), same sub, to Sec Army, all in RG 112, accession 68A-358, Box 17/33, NARA-WNRC; SG Conferences, 30 Sep and 1 Oct 65, and 4 Jan and 15 Jul 66; `Military Optometry,` Journal of the American Optometric Association (JAOA) 37 (April 1966): 331-45. Special Call #37 was for 1,529 physicians, 350 dentists, and 100 veterinarians. Special Call #38 for 900 male nurses (700 Army, 200 Navy) produced 27 warrant and 124 commissioned ANC officers. See Robert V. Piemonte and Cindy Gurney, Highlights in the History of the Army Nurse Corps, pamphlet (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1987), p. 51.
95Draft of optometrists: Hamrick said it was his `strong belief` a draft was necessary. Hamrick to Hughes, 22 Oct 65, RG 112, accession 68A-3358, Box 17/33, NARA-WNRC.
96Salute:JAOA 37, special issue (April 1966): 331-45.
97Entry grade: Vernon McKenzie, DASD (HR&P), to Sen Walter D. Huddleston, 13 Dec 73; Brig Gen Surindar N. Bhaskar, Dir Pers, OTSG, to Rep Carl D. Perkins, 15 Jan 74; Maj Gen Robert W. Green, Actg TSG, to William H. McAlister, 1 Apr 74, all in DASG-MS.
98Credit: Physicians had on the average nine or more years of training, dentists seven, and veterinarians between six and seven.
99Special pay: Memo, Giroux for TSG, sub: Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Legislative Proposal, sub: Armed Forces Medical and Dental Special Pay of 1979, 22 Feb 79; Optometry Newsletter, 1 August 1980, all in DASG-MS. It was opposed by General Morrison because he believed it would be divisive if only one MSC specialty received the pay.
100Letter: Ltrs, Lt Col Budd Appleton, MC, WRAMC, to `Dear Doctor,` undated (1968), and to `Dear Doctor,` 27 Sep 68, DASG-MS.
101Complaints: Twenty-seven letters from optometrists to Lt Col Gene M. Bourland, MSC, Ch, Opt Sec, May-Sep 74, DASG-MS, hereafter cited as Letters to Bourland.
102Quoted words: Bourland to Haggerty, 27 Aug 74, DASG-MS.
103Numbers: Letters to Bourland.
104Meeting: Bourland to Haggerty, sub: Recommendations Affecting Army Optometry, with incls, 6 May 74, DASG-MS.
105Apologies: Appleton to Bourland, 16 Aug 74; Bourland to Appleton, 3 Sep 74, both in DASG-MS.
106Assignments: Heaton, `Medical Support of the Soldier: A Team Effort in Saving Lives,` Army 19 (October 1969): 86.
107Unacceptable: Boyson, `Why Doctors Get Out,` p. 10.
108TASTA-70: Rpt, HQDA, sub: The Administrative Support Theater Army 1965-1970 (TASTA-70), 8 Jun 66, summarized in CMT 2, OTSG, sub: Review of TASTA, Part I, 23 Feb 68, and MFR to CMT 2, TSG to DCSLOG, sub: Proposal for Development of a Standard Theater Army Support Command (TASCOM) Supply and Maintenance System, 10 Feb 69, RG 112, accession 72A-3501, Box 20/55, NARA-WNRC; Col Campbell, XO, OTSG, to ACSFOR, sub: Operational Report, Lessons Learned, 3 Jan 67, RG 112, accession 70A-2772, Box 12/43, NARA?WNRC; SG Conferences, 15 Apr 66 and 20 and 27 Jan and 17 Mar 67. Brown Board: CSM 65-276, sub: Board of Inquiry on the Army Logistics System, 17 Jun 65, and Heaton to Maj Gen Laurence A. Potter, MC, Surg, USAREUR, 12 Oct 66, RG 112, accession 69A-2604, Box 17/38, NARA-WNRC; Spread Sheet, OTSG, sub: Board of Inquiry on the Army Logistics System (Format B), Recommendation V-IV, p. III-35, par. 15.b.(3), sub: Development of Logistics Doctrine, 17 Mar 67, DASG-MS. Background on the formation of Class VIII (and AR 320-5 def-
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inition) in SG Conferences, 17 Mar and 7 Aug 67. Also see DF, Wilbur J. Balderson, Ch, Materiel Coord Br, OTSG, to Ch, Materiel Rqmts Br, OTSG, sub: Establishment of an Army Medical Service Depot Section of a General Depot, 5 Dec 67, DASG-MS. Besson Board: Besson Board, pp. D3-D4.
109MSC star: Notes of interv, Richard Kirk Weir, Dir, Developmental Credentialing Programs, ACHA (formerly Director of Membership), with Ginn, Chicago, Ill., 12 Feb 85, DASG-MS.
