AIDS

Recently PBS (Public Broadcasting Station) did a program on preserving the history of the AIDS epidemic. Quite sobering and reminded me of how we handled the epidemic in the military. Not very good I might say. 

AIDS had begun to come in the early 80s. Really sad. The military didn't know what to do. Letterman (on the Presidio) established a "Ward" (half a floor) for HIV positive soldiers who were really sick. A trying time. The Medical Center (Letterman) became the repository for HIV positive soldiers, for the Pacific Rim. The docs/chaplains didn't want to get involved. To their credit, early on, the medical types really didn't know much about AIDS and how it happened. I finally took over the Ward myself. Hell, I was a paratrooper, think I was going to let a little sickness scare me. 

Soldiers begin to get really sick and die. The saddest experiences for me began to be when lovers/parents got involved in the death and dying process and found themselves in strange territory. 

When we had an AIDS patient to die, the local contract funeral home took the body, prepared it, at military expense, to wait further instructions. Most of the time I knew the person and was sad myself and tried to facilitate the process. More often than not, the soldier was estranged from his parents and the partner was the grieving one sitting by the bedside. 

One young soldier I remember, especially, which was more the rule than the exception. The soldier had come from Fort Riley, Kansas. A Sergeant E5 as I remember. San Francisco and the Presidio was his dream town. I didn't know all those things that came before but after the soldier was sick, the partner, a civilian, came to nurse him. He came everyday and sat by the bed, and I got to know him pretty well. Wonderful guy.  The soldier died and the partner was a heap laying on the floor when I found him. Usually I had the hospital wait for goodbyes but this one slipped by me. The general was already ticked at me plus the hospital Sergeant Major. F..K.  

The parents arrived. I met them and tried to talk about the partner. No way. They wanted nothing to do with his "sordid life", the father said. They were Christians and didn't know this son and hadn't for years but they wanted to do their Christian duty and take his body home to Texas for burial. They gathered the soldier's personal effects and left. I found the partner at the back of the chapel crying his eyes out, overwhelmed with grief.