Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. My enlistment in the U. A close friend had been drafted by the Army and suffered a bullet wound through the knee just eight hours after landing in Korea and, as a young doctor, I realized my skills would be better utilized in the PHS than in military combat. Ironically, however, my first assignment in September of was at a military base, Fort Bragg, near Fayetteville, North Carolina.
I had completed two years of residency at the University of Michigan Department of Dermatology when I received the draft notice. I had planned to finish three years of training to qualify for a medical practice as a dermatologist.
The specialty also included syphilology, for which I had training at the nearby State Rapid Treatment Center for venereal diseases VDs. My plans were interrupted by the Surgeon General who had just received a request from Fort Bragg for assistance in confronting a VD epidemic among , fresh troops being mobilized at the base. I was assigned to the Cumberland County Health Department in Fayettevilleβthe closest city to Fort Braggβwhere I would work to control the sources of sexual exposure in the 10 counties surrounding the base.
The town was reputed to be a veritable den of iniquity. My first job was to meet with the Army Disciplinary Board. As a year-old doctor just beginning my medical career, I decided to wear my PHS uniform, which was patterned after the Navy's dress code, to enhance my credibility and boost my confidence. The Board viewed any soldier infected with VD as having committed a punishable offense.
Rather than seeing VD as a medical condition in need of treatment, the Board saw it as a crime in need of punishment and correction.
