Dengue is transmitted by several species of mosquito within the genus Aedes, principally A. aegypti. The virus has four different types; infection with one type usually gives lifelong immunity to that type, but only short-term immunity to the others. Subsequent infection with a different type increases the risk of severe complications. As there is no vaccine, prevention is sought by reducing the habitat and the number of mosquitoes and limiting exposure to bites.
I started this post with the Wikipedia definition of what I
will for the rest of this story call Dengue Fever.
In 1967, I was sent to Fort Irwin, California as a brand new
2nd Lieutenant. We were told on the
orders that we were to go there and train for deployment to Vietnam. In addition to the normal training duty, we
had to request and issue all the equipment to our units and getting ready to
train was a bigger job than I had anticipated.
The Battery Commander assigned me an additional duty as the supply
officer and I spent most of my non field time in the unit supply room. It was a lot like being a liaison officer
between the Supply section and the rest of the unit. I had to direct the XO to send the gun chiefs
over to sign for their equipment or they would leave the stuff piled in our way
of getting everything done. You have no idea how much equipment a maintenance
section and the mess section has to do their mission. Most of the maintenance section was what I
called fiddly bits and the stuff for the howitzer sections was big and bulky.
I am not sure if it was just because I was available or if
the commander wanted to reward me, but when the chance to send some of the
Forward Observers to Panama and the Jungle Warfare School I was the guy selected. Part one of this story will be the trip
there and the training and part two will be what happened when I got back.
One day I was in the day room at our BOQ and one of the guys
was on the phone to his girlfriend. I
asked him if it was the one in Barstow or the one in Boston. He put his hand over the mouthpiece and told
me it was the one in Barstow. I told him
that I would shut up if he could get me a date for the next weekend. He did and that's how I met Barbara who has
been my wife for going on 45 years. We
dated that Friday and Saturday night and on Sunday we left for the flight to
the East Coast. We flew to Columbia
South Carolina and gathered up there for a flight to Panama the next
morning. The flight down to Panama was
uneventful and I really don't remember any outstanding details about it.
Upon arrival in Panama, those of us that had been in the
warm desert were almost overwhelmed with the humidity. We were well conditioned to the heat, but
most of us had forgotten what it was to sweat from every pore 100% of the
time. It didn't take us long to discover
that Fort Clayton had an officer's club that was air conditioned and in the
same building that we were in. Most of
us went there and spent a lot of time
away from the heat. We were in hog
heaven as the booze was cheap. I mean 15
cents for a rum and coke kind of cheap.
One of my OCS Class mates was the club officer and I'm sure that he
hosted me to more than one free drinks.
The Jungle School was two weeks long and the first few days
were spent in classes and at night we went back into the barracks at
night. We learned to eat the natural
food in the jungle, how to build a hut, how to conduct operations and navigate through the jungle.
Many of the classes were evaluated and you were given points for successful
completion of the events. At the end, if
you had 900 of the 1000 points possible, you were given the Jungle Expert
Badge. Actually it was a certificate and
you had to buy the sew on patch if you wanted to wear it. Some did, some didn't. By the time the first week ended, I had a
case of prickly heat to end all cases and spent the middle weekend coating
myself with calamine lotion and slowly rotating in from of one of those large
fans. Many of the guys went into town
but I didn't.
By the time the first week was over, I had amassed well over
500 points and there was only the night compass course and the escape and
evasion course left. My team went right
out and right through the compass course and came out right on our target
point. That left the escape and evasion
course to complete. The only way to lose
points on the E&E course was to get caught.
It was 50 points each time you got caught and my team decided that we
had no intentions of getting caught.
We started early in the morning with a map that gave us a
rendezvous point that was down the Rio Chagres and along a very obvious trail
on the map. It was a pretty sure thing
if you came down the trail you would get caught and I had no intention of
getting caught. We climbed up on the
hills above the rendezvous point and went way out of our way and then repelled
down to meet up with the partisans.
There we were given a couple of C-Ration meals, a chance to fill our
canteens with clean water and a map to the final point further down the
river. We left the point the way we came
in and stayed well off the trail on the map.
Many of the other teams stayed on the trail and they were all stopped
and arrested which cost you 50 points.
In fact, there were two points further down the trail that the soldiers
would be captured.
We had good maps and saw that there was a large swamp where
the river went inland and the trail went way around that. We struck out across the swamp and did our
best to not get caught. The mosquitoes
were so thick that you couldn't breathe with your mouth open. We all used up all the repellent we had and
struggled through the swamp and across the trail to the final point. We broke out of the swamp less than a mile
from the final point and heard the aggressors stopping people just ahead on the
trail. I knew that I could get caught
once and still make Jungle expert so I just walked on and let them take my
name. We were at the end of the time so
I knew that they wouldn't try to capture us just take our name and move us on.
Sure enough the next morning, the Jungle Expert list was
posted and there among the names was 2nd Lieutenant D.E. Petty. Woo Hoo, that and a buck 29 would let me buy
the patch. For Brevity, I'll stop here and move to part two tomorrow. Who knows, this could be a three parter.
MUD
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