America now faces the dreaded coronavirus. Public events are being canceled, store shelves are being emptied, and most importantly, people’s health is in danger. I have never experienced this level of disease fear in my lifetime. I was blessed to be born in America in a time when vaccines and antibiotics allowed most people I knew to live free from serious concerns about the contagious diseases that had frightened previous generations. Growing up in the late ‘70s and through the ‘80s, I knew of polio, whooping cough, and smallpox only from history books.
All this attention on the coronavirus reminds me of the no-nonsense military approach to medicine. The Army doesn’t mess around with the health of its soldiers. In basic training, we received a quick briefing about the immunizations we were about to be injected with. There was no debate. We marched in a line with both sleeves rolled up and the backs of our pants lowered exactly 3 inches. A squad of Army medics jabbed us with needles in both arms and with a weird, heavy dose in our buttocks, which would remain sore for days.
The worst was the smallpox vaccine we received during our training for deployment to Afghanistan.
“Is this really necessary?” I whispered to my friend at the briefing. “This isn’t the Civil War. Nobody gets smallpox.”
“This vaccination is mandatory,” explained the medical officer, a young captain. He explained how the vaccine worked and that a prick in our upper arm would eventually result in a small blister. “Do NOT touch the injection site,” he said sternly.
All Army briefings were accompanied by a PowerPoint, no matter how stupid. But unlike most Army slides, the one the captain put up next was extraordinarily useful.
I curled my lip in disgust as the whole screen before us was filled with a photograph of a woman’s miserable face, blisters all over her eyeball. “This is a photograph of a woman who touched her smallpox vaccination site and then touched her eye,” the captain explained.
“Yep,” I said quietly. “Don’t touch the injection site. Roger that.”
Sometimes, Army medical people were crystal clear and super helpful. The captain ordered us to change the bandage daily and sent us on our way.
“Guys,” I said in the barracks a few days after the vaccination. “I think I’m sick. I feel like there’s a golf ball stuck inside my neck, and my armpit is all weird.”
“That’s your lymph nodes reacting to the smallpox vaccine, English major,” Sgt. Herbokowitz said. He cussed at my stupidity.
I did my best to follow my medical orders. I remembered the lady with the blistered eyeball as I changed my bandage each day. The water in the barracks could be extraordinarily hot. I’d soap and scald-wash my hands before removing the old bandage and sealing it in a plastic bag to throw away. Then, I’d repeat the painful hand-washing procedure to reduce the risk of contamination further. I’d even get out the cleaning chemicals and scrub down the sink I’d used.
Overcautious? Certainly. But under no circumstances would I allow myself to break out with horrible sores on my eyeballs — or anywhere else.
Of course, all of us soldiers made it through the vaccination process with no serious problems, and — thanks be to God — everyone in my unit returned home safe from the war.
After that, I had fun making silly jokes, as when my post-deployment employer asked if my immunizations were up to date. I responded with, “I am immune to everything up to and including weapons-grade anthrax.” My employer wasn’t amused.
As America faces the largest-scale disease challenge that most of us can remember, I hope we will respond with that military efficiency and effectiveness. And I pray, dear reader, for the health of you and your loved ones as we all work through this.
Trent Reedy served as a combat engineer in the Iowa National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
