Bravo Company 1978 and Hep C Germany veterans seek justice

UPDATE
Artie is starting a support group for all veterans with hepatitis c so we can help one another deal with the virus and over time prove it was transmitted by air gun and needle while in service.

This support group is for all veterans and any that wish to get it started with me please have them contact me at my email arthurfryer2beking@yahoo.com or my home (3520503-2569). If they leave a message I can call them back at the end of the day.

Earlier today I received a phone call from a veteran about what happened to him in Germany because of the some of the Hepatitis C posts I have up.
Vietnam veterans and Hepatitis C jet gun delivered
Bush shafts Hepatitis C veterans
Hepatitis C Cases Appearing More In Vietnam Veterans and this one about a Florida veteran winning his lawsuit after a colonoscopy

I told him a couple of things he could try and one of them was getting his story more out in public so that maybe, just maybe he could get some justice for himself but he wanted to do it for other veterans more. That's right! As soon as I said it could help other veterans, he agreed right away. So here is his story along with a couple of responses he received from other veterans.

Kathy, in Dec 1978 I was stationed with the 1st bn 39th mechanized infantry 8th infantry division Baumholder Germany with Bravo company from sept 19 1977 to sept 26 1980.

In dec we received a flu shot in the basement of Charlie company from the medics and it was alive vaccine. When we got there for the shot they switched to a needle since the air gun stoped working just before we got there.

They took the needle and inserted into the vial vaccine and one after the other gave us the shot. In line in front of me was a guy named cagola,red and roy and not long ago I talked with roy who informed me he had hepatitis at the time of the shot.

I was later that evening taken to the infirmary since I eneded up with the flu and had a temp of 104.6 and was labled patient #52 with many still coming in after me.

The medical staff were short of people and when they could not get my temp down they started a IV which was already used on another patient.

A guy in Charlie company who I believe was a medic was supposevely murdered in jan 1979 but when I checked on it the soldier they said was killed by the bieder meinhoff gang also known as the red faction army killed the guy with a ice pick and took his id. I checked and found that soldier was killed in 1985 long after I was there but the guy in Charlie company was a medic and thios was the story they spred about his death.

I have found out besides myself that six others in my unit endedup with hep c and 2 alone were in my platoon ,one was from csc company and at the time I was told we were quarantined due to tb breakout and after talking with others found out it was hepatitis.

I have the proof to prove it happened and hope some is willing to listen on the facts that it can be spred my air gun innoculations and my fondest hope is to help all veterans past and present. My home number is 352-503-2569. Im sending a pic of me and my girlfriend so you know what I look like. god bless artie

He received this reply

I for sure do NOT have it, but remember that 1/39 was deemed Non Combat Ready for a period of time over this. That's why we were warned in formation. I have about 6 friends on facebook that were in my company back then that may remember it. If you would like to try to contact them I could see if any remember this incident.

and this one from another veteran

I am doing well thanks. Hope all is well considering your medical condition. I do remember the outbreak of hepititis in the 1/39 Infantry. I don't remember exact year, but I was in Baumholder from 1978-1982. What I remember was my medical platoon sergeant was totally again the air gun for innoculations. But also in that same time frame, I don't know if it were 1/39th Infantry or the 1/87th Inf there was a medic(s) that got into the safe that store narcotics that were to be used in war time. The medic(s) used needles and syringes to break through cellophane and draw the narcotics out. Those narcotics were inventoried monthly by a disinterested person and inspected annually by the division surgeons office. Why I mention this to you as there was discussion that possibly some folks contracted the hepititis virus as some folks shared needles when using the narcotics. In fact, the virus was found in a medic who died of overdose.

If there is something I can help you with I will. Of course, it's been 35 yrs ago or so, so my memory isn't the greatest....but I do remember that out break.

If it happened to you too, get your story out there and give lawyers a chance to fight for you. You shouldn't have to fight for what you have been dealing with, but you are not fighting alone.

Bravo Company gets standing ovation during MOH ceremony for Lesile H. Sabo Jr.

Heroic Vietnam War soldier awarded posthumous Medal of Honor

Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images President Obama presents Rose Mary Sabo-Brown with a Medal of Honor for her late husband, Army Specialist Leslie H. Sabo, Jr., during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House.

By Jeff Black, msnbc.com

President Barack Obama presented the country’s highest military decoration to the family of Army Spc. Leslie H. Sabo Jr., who was killed protecting fellow soldiers from an ambush in Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

The 22-year-old Army rifleman killed several North Vietnamese soldiers, shielded a comrade from a grenade blast and forced a retreat in a battle that took place on May 10, 1970.

The Medal of Honor was awarded to Sabo’s widow, Rose Mary Sabo-Brown, in the East Room of the White House. "He saved his comrades who meant more to him than life," Obama said at the ceremony, while also saluting other Vietnam War veterans. Members of Sabo's unit, Bravo Company, were in attendance and received a standing ovation.
read more here

Marine Vietnam Vet receives Bronze Star because buddies cared

Aside from spending over half my life surrounded by Vietnam veterans, this is one example of why I adore them as much as I do. Think of the kind of commitment they have for each other that a reunion in Orlando Florida made sure that a Vietnam veteran from Dorchester Massachusetts received the honor he earned so long ago for his actions as a teenager in combat.

Corporal Paul R. Moore, then 19, was shot in the right cheek. Unable to speak, he sketched the enemy's position on paper.

Marine from Dorchester receives long-awaited honor
Aided battalion after he was shot; gets Bronze Star

By Kathy McCabe
Globe Staff / May 31, 2009
From behind thick brush, they fired machine guns at Marines positioned in rice paddies near a river in South Vietnam.

Feb. 12, 1970, was a long and bloody day for the men of Bravo Company of the Seventh Marines.

Corporal Paul R. Moore of Dorchester, then 19 years old and only 10 days' married, crawled through fields to carry dead and wounded comrades to the safety of a tree line. The North Vietnamese Army kept firing, and Moore was struck by a bullet in his right cheek. Unable to speak, he sketched the enemy's position on paper.

"He stayed alive, and lived to tell us where to find the enemy," said Ron Ambort, a retired Marine lieutenant. "It's a day I'll never forget."

The honor was bestowed five years after his loyal comrades decided to right a wrong. At a Marine reunion in Orlando in 2004, Moore's friends realized his had never been officially recognized.
go here for more
Marine from Dorchester receives long-awaited honor

Army medical unit leaves St. Petersburg for Iraq

Army medical unit leaves St. Petersburg for Iraq
By Dagny SalasTimes Staff Writer
Published Thursday, April 3, 2008 11:41 PM

Nancy Reuter of St. Petersburg says goodbye to her daughter, Spc. Daphne Reuter, as Bravo Company 345 departs at the United States Army Reserve. “I’m being brave. I was okay until I saw the buses ... my only daughter ... my only child,’’ Reuter said. 

ST. PETERSBURG — For the sake of the kids, Elizabeth Rogers held back her tears. There would be time for that later, she said.

Her husband Charlie and about 50 other members of Bravo Company 345, a U.S. Army medical unit, left St. Petersburg on Thursday on their way Iraq, a deployment expected to last about a year.

"It's rough, but I try to be strong for them," Elizabeth said of Emma, 4, and Ethan, 2. "It doesn't really hit until they're gone."

For his part, Charlie said he has mixed feeling about leaving for his second tour.

"I want to go but I don't want to go,'' he said. "I like what I do in the Army, but I don't want to leave my family. It's just time to go to work, do the year and come home."

But the families could take some comfort that their loved ones will probably be in less danger than combat troops, said Staff Sgt. Robert Hogg.
go here for the rest
http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/article442619.ece

If you've been watching Bad Voodoo's War, or any of the other documentaries on the serial deployments in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan, by now you are aware, the troops are tired and their families are tired. Tired of seeing them go and come back, only to be sent back again.

I often wonder what is going through their heads when they hear Bush say "We will stay in Iraq" but never says what it is he thinks will be accomplished. The Iraqi forces have been proven to be not worth the training when they turned around and refused to fight Al-Sadr's militia, handed in their weapons to him, or did go up against him only to be defeated and driven back. There is Sunni, Shia, Shia Shia fighting and all sides what the troops out of there. I hear all kinds of reports on how much good the troops are doing in Iraq yet no one mentions they didn't join the armed forces to become contractors or escorts for them when all sides in Iraq, including most Iraqi police forces, wanting to kill them. Again, go watch Bad Voodoo's War and see what I mean.

What are we doing to the troops? We are not taking care of them. We are not taking care of the National Guard families who have to do without the regular income these people make back here. What exactly does "support the troops" really mean? What's our job in all of this? The most pressing issue before us is the fact that the Republicans in office seem too disinterested in any of this to even support the new GI Bill, support hearings being held on the contractors not providing good body armor to protect them and the list goes on in bloody detail of the things they are not interested in. So where are the voters who put them into office and shout the loudest about "support the troops" when it comes to supporting what Bush has been doing to them?