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Veterans' Research
Birth Defect Research for Children has worked with Vietnam veterans’ families since 1986 when the first Agent Orange Class Assistance Programs were funded. Although BDRC did not have AOCAP funding, we worked with the University of South Carolina in case work that involved counseling with veterans’ families and creating a series of fact sheets on the disabilities they were reporting in their children. During this time BDRC also began the first initiative to set up the National Birth Defect Registry, partly to collect the information being reported by the veterans.
CLICK MESOTHELIOMA
Information for veterans about mesothelioma cancer from Mesothelioma.com.
For further information on asbestos exposure in the military, visit Mesothelioma Web, one of the most comprehensive resources on asbestos & mesothelioma. See also the page specifically for veterans: Mesothelioma & Veterans.
Dear Friends of the Vietnam Women's Memorial Foundation!
I've always promised you I would not abuse your gift to us of your email address. This message is very important to you and I hope you'll take special note of it.
In our annual newsletter last year we alerted you to a massive research study recently funded by the Veterans Administration. We're cooperating with this study offering ideas for the tools and providing access to our Sister Search database. That was one of the very special purposes of the database.
This announcement informs you of the contacts you can make to ensure you could be included in the study. Please share this information as widely as you can. The attached flyer could be copied and used as a handout at meetings or social events. Please be an advocate for this very important study. We owe it to ourselves, and to our young sisters serving in Iraq and Afghanistan to develop this body of knowledge.
Who could be in the study?
Military Vietnam era veterans who served either “in-country”, “near-country” (ie: Japan, Phillippines, Guam), or anywhere else. Please note, this means that if you were assigned in Germany, or the US but never served in country during Vietnam, there is a chance to be included. There's no assurance, but there's a chance.
Please read this carefully and consider contacting the VA.
Thank you all!
Cindy Gurney, COL, USA (Ret)
Executive Director
Vietnam Women's Memorial Foundation
1735 Connecticut Ave. NW, 3rd FL
Washington, DC 20009
Toll Free (866) 822-8963 vwmfdc@gmail.com www.vietnamwomensmemorial.org
____________________________________________________________________________
VA announcement of research involving Vietnam War era women veterans
On November 18, 2009, the Secretary of Veterans? Affairs Eric Shinseki announced that The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is launching a comprehensive study of women Veterans who served in the military during the Vietnam War to explore the effects of their military service upon their mental and physical health.
VA realizes that women Veterans require specialized programs, and this study will help the VA provide high-quality care for women Veterans of the Vietnam era. The study, which begins later this year (2010) and lasts more than four years, will contact approximately 10,000 women in a mailed survey, telephone interview and a review of their medical records.
As women Vietnam Veterans approach their mid-sixties, it is important to understand the impact of wartime deployment on health and mental outcomes nearly 40 years later. The study will assess the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental and physical health conditions for women Vietnam Veterans, and explore the relationship between PTSD and other conditions.
The VA will study women Vietnam Veterans who may have had direct exposure to traumatic events, and for the first time, study those who served in facilities near Vietnam and in the United States. These women may have had similar, but less direct exposures. Both women Veterans who receive their health care from VA and those who receive health care from other providers will be contacted to determine the prevalence of a variety of health conditions.
About 250,000 women Veterans served in the military during the Vietnam War and about 7,000 were in or near Vietnam. Those who were in Vietnam, those who served elsewhere in Southeast Asia and those who served in the United States are potential study participants.
The study represents to date the most comprehensive examination of women Veterans, and will be used to shape future research on women Veterans in future wars. Such an understanding will lay the groundwork for planning and providing appropriate services for today's younger women Veterans, as well as for the aging Veteran.
For more information on the study you may go to the following website: https://www.csp.research.va.gov/csp579.cfm, For information on how to participate in the study please call 1-888-831-3325
H.R. 2254, the Agent Orange Equity Act of 2009 was introduced on May 5, 2009 by Congressman Bob Filner of California . He is the Chairman of the US House Committee on Veterans? Affairs. The bill currently has 253 co-sponsors in the House and is “stuck” in the Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs. Chairman Filner has never called hearings on H.R. 2254 and is evasive when asked about when hearings will be held. A companion bill in the US Senate (S-1939) was introduced by Senator Susan Gillibrand of New York on October 27, 2009 and has only sixteen Senate co-sponsors. It currently sits in the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. Senator Akaka, Chairman of that committee has not responded to requests for information. And, it was just learned today, that the Institute of Medicine will hold a day-long hearing on Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans and Agent Orange Exposure on May 3, 2010 in Washington , DC from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.
This life-saving bill is designed to extend the presumption of herbicide (Agent Orange) exposure to US Navy veterans serving offshore. Informally, we are told that members of the House are hesitant to move because of its potential cost. It is estimated that approximately 265,000 “blue water” Navy and/or US Marine Corps personnel or their surviving family members will file claims if these two bills become law.
In 1999, the Royal Australian Department of Veterans Affairs discovered Agent Orange related cancers among sailors of their Navy who had never set foot in Vietnam . Australian Sailors were developing cancer at an even higher rate than those who served on the ground. The Australians found that the distilling process, used by ships to convert salt water to potable drinking water, was using contaminated water. That process actually enhanced the effect of the dioxin producing an Agent Orange cocktail that was ingested by the sailors through their drinking water. The American VA has inexplicably rejected the study. Although the Australians have granted an exposure presumption for over five years, the Americans continue to deny the claims.
In July of 2009, the prestigious Institute of Medicine (IOM)?s committee on Agent Orange independently validated the Australian report and recommended that the exposure presumption be extended to the Navy veterans. The IOM is required by law to provide recommendations and scientific support to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA has rejected the IOMrecommendation without adequate explanation.
Name: Sam Hung
from: Charlotte, NC
Comments: I was at the 45th surgical hospital as a translator during the years of 68 69 70 in Tay Ninh base camp. Please contact me if you still remember me. 704-724-3944
January 2, 2008 01:49:01 (GMT Time)
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Other ANNOUNCEMENTS: MEMBERS OF THE 45th Surgical Hospital (LISTEN UP)
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What are we going to do for a Reunion ?
You can have a bunch of small reunions with people close by in your Area !
The Second Reunion is Done, Now Let Us Talk About the THIRD Reunion on the CORK BOARD. HOW ABOUT CHARLOTTE, NC ? CORK BOARD is on the upper Right side of this Web Page.
This pamphlet is published to assist commanders and personnel
officers in determining or establishing the eligibility of individual
members for campaign participation credit, assault landing credit,
and unit citation badges awarded during the Vietnam Conflict, the
Grenada Operation, and the period of service subsequent to the
Vietnam Conflict up to September 1987. Additional unit awards are
included for meritorious achievement in the continental United
States (CONUS) and other foreign countries.
If you find that your unit citations were updated, get the VA to get you a new Updated DD-214 FORM.
Important Note:
Name: PAUL THEOBALD
Email: PGTHEOB@GMAIL.COM
Where are
you from: NORMAL, ILLINOIS
Comments: WARREN GOLDSTEIN OF ROCHESTER NY PASSED AWAY ON OCTOBER 10 2008. HE WAS THE COMPANY CLERK OF THE 1ST PORTABLE SURGICAL HOSPITAL OF THE CBI AREA. HE WAS A FRIEND OF MINE AND WE HAD THE SAME BIRTHDATE AND WEDDING ANNIVERSARY. WE WERE THE LAST TWO SURVIVING MEMBERS OF THE 1ST 45TH PSH. DURING THE LAST FEW YEARS WE HAD BECOME GREAT FRIENDS. HE WILL BE MISSED BY ALL WHO KNEW HIM AND ESPECIALLY BY HIS WIFE, JUDY AND HIS FAMILY. HIS DEATH LEAVES ME WITH GREAT SADNESS AND NOW I AM THE ONLY REMAINING FORMER MEMBER OF THE FIRST 45TH PORTABLE SURGICAL HOSPITAL
December 12, 2008 07:33:13 (GMT Time)
Proud member of The largest Military
Webring in the World! Want to join the ring? Get
infoVisit
other sites
187th Helicopter Assault Company Crusaders (Rat-Pack)
The 187th was next to the 45th on Tay Ninh Base Camp on the North side of us. We had Friends in the 187th and when they were hurting we were hurting. I had a friend that got kidney problems so they shipped him back to the states, I never saw him again.
I may have been the Cobra pilot in 69 that scared you to death by the rubber trees ,those 2.75 rockets made a big bang.I was Ratpack 5 flying with the 187th.Enjoyed the pics....
Sincerely Dr. Rod
A short Reply from the WebMaster:
Alfred and Barnie (where ever he is), Thank you for Your Fire Support During that Fire Fight, and the Rush of Adrenaline... OH WHAT A RUSH !
Five Rockets heading toward your truck, on the way to the tree line 50 feet away, scared to death is an under statement.
Then we heard your Cobra Helicopter after the Rocket Fire, Our Lives Flashed before our eyes and then some.
But without that Fire Support we may not be here today, Thanks Again, Ratpack 5, Dr.Rod, 187th AHC.
I remember when we first got there, David E. Barnwell and Alfred L. Peterson, that's me, we had to learn fast on how to act.
When we had incoming rockets and mortars, in 1968 they were chinese made 107mm and 122mm rockets, some recoiless rifle hits, you can't here those coming. None of this was taught to us in basic training, or AIT. Any way we learned that if you here a low pitch hum, hit it, the ground and lay flat as possible, then when you do not here anymore for a while, low crawl to the nearest bunker, never stand up cause it can get you killed. Never stand in any place more than 3-4 minutes, due to snippers around the perimeter of the base camp. When the planes landed and took off from Tay Ninh base camp, the aircraft were flown at a high angle, to keep from getting shotdown by small arms fire.
To give you an example of how jumpy a person got after a year of that. When my father picked me up at LAX, we were going down the freeway at 70 miles per hour, and I was checking every nook and cranny on both sides of the road, for snippers, convoy speed was 35-45 mph, I gave myself a head ache so I put my hands over my eyes, and my head down, when my father asked me what was wrong I said I just had a head ache. Later that day, after being awake for 72+ hours I finally got to sleep, my step mother & father were at work, when the down pitch of a police car siren sounded like an incomming rocket, I was on the floor low crawling toward the bathroom, then I looked around me and realized where I was, and I was glad no one was there to see me.
There are alot of things that we keep to our selves because no one would understand, you had to be there, and experience what happened to really understand what another person is talking about who has been there.
Rex B. Wimmer Ambulance Medic: Rex came to Viet Nam after I had Been there for about 8 months. He use to go down to the perimeter during a firefight and pick up wounded, in a 3/4 ton tacticalambulance, with a big white background and redcross on the sides of it, as if to say to charlieshoot at me.... You see we did not have camouflauge trucks.... IF Anybody knows Rex's E-mail send it to Alfred L. Peterson Thanks...
Now our X-ray Tech's nick name was Moose
One Night when we had wounded comming in on the helopad. He and Cpt. Pederson where going throughthe sachels of grenades taken off of the wounded.You see they use to put the grenades in the sachelswithout the pins in them, so all they had to dowas grab and through them. Well Moose, grabbed a grenade that the Cpt. got out, because the spoon started to flip, and he tucked it toward his stomach and ran away toward the helopad, to put a pin in it. The Hospital Commander heard about it, and put Moose in for a Bronze Star, But he Never Got it. We Figured all those guys with the Generals in Long Bien Got Them all, At least that's what we thought...at the time.
IF YOU HAVE SEEN ANY OF THESE KIDS JUST CLICK ON THE BOX AND PLEASE LET THEM KNOW !
AWARDS to the 45th Surgical Hospital
Department of the Army
Pamphlet 672-3
Decorations, Awards, and Honors
Unit Citation
and Campaign
Participation
Credit Register
Headquarters
Department of the Army
Washington, DC
29 January 1988
45th Surgical Hospital
Meritorious Unit Commendation-4 Oct 66-31 May 69, DAGO 39,70; 1 Jun 69-15 Aug 70, DAGO 51, 71
RVN Gallantry Cross w/Palm-13 Oct 66-31 Aug 68, DAGO 48,71
Notes:
The Meritorious Unit Commendation is a mid-level unit award of the United States military which is awarded to any military command which displays exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service, heroic deeds, or valorous actions.
The Army Meritorious Unit Commendation was originally established in 1944 as the "Meritorious Service Unit Plaque". On April 6, 1966, the award was changed to a personal decoration, for wear on a uniform, with the ribbon established as a patch of scarlet worn inside a gold frame. Additional awards are denoted by oak leaf clusters.
Notes:
An oak leaf cluster or oakleaves is a common device which is placed on U.S. military awards and decorations (and those of some other nations) to denote those who have received more than one bestowal of a particular decoration. The number of oak leaf clusters typically indicates the second and subsequent award of the decoration.
Most military awards use bronze, silver, and gold oak leaf clusters. The higher ranking oak leaf clusters are issued "in lieu" of a greater number of lower ranking clusters, allowing a large number of award annotations to fit on a single ribbon. For instance, five bronze oak leaf clusters would be denoted by one silver and five silver by one gold.
Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Palm Medal
The Vietnam Gallantry Cross is a military decoration of South Vietnam which was established in August 1950. Also known as the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, the Gallantry Cross is awarded to any military personnel who have accomplished deeds of valor or displayed heroic conduct while fighting an enemy force.
The Gallantry Cross is issued in four degrees, with a basic medal followed by higher degrees which are the equivalent of personal citations on an organizational level (also known as having been "mentioned in dispatches"). The degrees of the Gallantry Cross are as follows:
Gallantry Cross with Palm (Individual Award)
Gallantry Cross with Bronze Star (Regiment or Brigade citation)
Gallantry Cross with Silver Star (Division citation)
Gallantry Cross with Gold Star (Corps citation)
The devices to the Gallantry Cross are not worn simultaneously but instead are upgradeable to the next higher device which would replace the previous device for wear on the decoration.
Gallantry Cross with Palm (Individual Award) and (Unit Award)
DA PAM 672-3 * 29 January 1988
SUMMARY of CHANGE
DA PAM 672-3
Unit Citation and Campaign Participation Credit Register
This change--
o Adds awards of the Joint Meritorious Unit Award and Army Superior Unit Award approved by the Secretary of Defense and the Chief of Staff, Army between February 1986 and September 1987(throughout).
o Corrects the references to tables.
o Expands the years covered by the register to cover January 1960 to September 1987 (chap 4).
Tribut to Warren R. Goldstein and Paul Theobald, M.D. WWII Veterans
1/1/2008
U.S Army Review Boards Agency Support Division 9700 Page Avenue
St. Louis, Missouri 63132-5200
Re: Warren R. Goldstein SSN XXX XX XXXX, AR20070006614 15 Briar Patch Road, Rochester, NY 14618
Dear Sirs:
In Introduction of myself, let me say that I am a friend and Army buddy of Mr. Goldstein.
This information is given in support of his request for correction of his Military Records and for the awarding him, the combat medical badge and the Bronze Star.
These awards were given to me while in the field with the 45th Portable Surgical Hospital in China, Burma and India in the years 1943-44.
I was the surgical technician in charge of the 45th surgical department. When I joined the 45th at Camp White we were being trained for combat duty.
We were issued carbines and trained in gas mask usage and in activities which taught us how to react under fire. Our Hospital consisted of 33 enlisted men and four officers.
After arriving in India, we were to fly the hump to China. However the Japanese were attempting an invasion of India and so our orders were changed and we were sent to the front in Northern Burma.
We set up the hospital as close to the front as we could get so that the litter bearers could carry the wounded to our hospital. The wounded started arriving before the hospital was completely set up.
As the front moved forward we packed up and moved forward with the Chinese command that we were attached.
Our next stop was at Kamaing Burma where we treated The Chinese and the British members of Wingate's raiders.
We were never assigned to any American forces and were always with the Chinese and I think this is why a lot of our work was never recorded.
Our next move was to Mogaung Burma where we continued to care for the Chinese and also some Burmese who needed our care. As the head surgical technician, I also did KP duty and guard duty.
The 45th was a small unit and all of us had to serve in many different capacities. We served where we were needed. Like the rest of us, the company clerk, Goldstein, did the same thing.
We carried our carbines where ever we went.
And at times, we came under gun fire. Luckily no one in the 45th was a war casualty, but we did and were in dangerous places many times. During the two plus years in the CBI area we were never quartered in a regular army camp site.
We were always set up in a area where we had to guard and provide for ourselves.
We traveled by trucks, boats, horseback and walking while carrying our equipment on our backs.
When the war was over, we flew to Shanghia where we were assigned to the Chinese forces who were to invade Formosa.
There was reason to believe that there would heavy resistance from the Japanese during the invasion.
Here again luck was with us and not a shot was fired.
For our support of the Chinese army, the outfit was commended by the Chinese with two different awards. Records of these awards were lost many years ago.
I received the order of the Banner in the Clouds after returning home.
The 45th served in 4 battles and always were assigned to the Chinese. We were a medical combat outfit in these 4 battles.
The 45th was the first and longest activated Portable Surgical Hospital.
I am now 85 Years of age. Our commanding officer will soon be celebrating his 95th birthday and Goldstein is 83.
We are the only surviving members of the 1st 45th* We recommend that the Combat Medical badge and the bronze Star be awarded to Warren Goldstein.
Former Head Technician of the 45th Portable.
I went to medical school after the war.
Paul G. Theobald M.D>(ret) Surgical Hospital, 1601 ~ Beech St, received my MD degree in 1951. Normal, Illinois, Army serial # XXXXXXXX SSN XXX XX XXXX
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY BOARD FOR CORRECTION OF MILITARY RECORDS 1901 SOUTH BELL STREET 2ND FLOOR ARLINGTON, VA 22202-4508
December 7, 2007
AR20070006614, Goldstein, Warren R.
Mr. Warren R. Goldstein 15 Briar Patch Road Rochester NY 14618
Dear Mr. Goldstein:
The Army Board for Correction of Military Records rendered a decision on your application to correct your military records. Partial relief to your request was granted.
Enclosed is a copy of the Record of Proceedings of the Board for your information.
The decision in your case is final. You may request reconsideration of that portion of your application which was denied by the Board within one year only if you can present new evidence or argument that was not considered by the Board when it denied that part of your original application.
The approved Record of Proceedings has been forwarded to the U.S. Army Review Boards Agency Support Division - St. Louis. They will take action to correct your records and will provide you with official notification as soon as the directed correction has been made.
Any further inquiry concerning your case should be addressed to the U.S. Army Review Boards Agency Support Division - St. Louis (SFMR-RBRSL), 9700 Page Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri 63132-5200.
Sincerely,
f\A- n U
-theriD; '--litrano Direclor, Army Board for Correction of Military Records