Staring in 1986, my first assignment out of the AEHA Occupational Medicine residency was to Army Materiel Command which was located at the time on the southern beltway stretch in Virginia, not that far from DC. I mention this because of an article today in the New York Times. One of the key portions of the job was to serve as the medical member of the inspection team covering all the “special weapons” Army Depots. This meant, essentially the chemical weapons depots (excluding the one in Germany which fell under the European Command) and the two nuclear weapons storage sites. (Please note – the ICBMs belonged to the Air Force and fell outside my remit).
This meant – during the 1986-1988 time frame I had the “opportunity” to visit all the storage sites + the two reactors. It was an interesting experience. In 1988, I was posted to Germany just in time to become the medical planner for the movement of the European stockpile out of Germany to Johnston Atoll where it was scheduled for destruction.
In fall of 1990, as soon as the ship left Bremerhaven I rotated back to the US and was planning on avoiding the whole topic of chemical weapons. That lasted till spring on 1991 when I found myself in the Netherlands working on the base documents for the OWCP (where the Dutch, South African and I wrote in a complete occupational medicine program, safety program, and training requirements).
This was followed by a two year stint handling follow on medical issues from the Gulf War and reviewing the Environmental Impact Statements for each one of the proposed chem demil locations….. and it seemed like I would never, ever be able to get away from the whole thing.
But from 1993 on, back in Germany my involvement with what was going on stateside became much less a focus. I completely lost track of the whole demil program. It wasn’t even a blip since we didn’t have any remaining chemical weapons in Germany. Even so, given various programatic and security clearance requirements that I was intermittently subject to, I still avoid “social media.”
That article today brought back a lot of memories – locations, inspections, team mates, various commanders. This is one area where it looks like we just might be headed in the right direction….
