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Author Topic: A HIV experience from thirty years ago  (Read 4460 times)

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Offline em

  • Member
  • Posts: 691
A HIV experience from thirty years ago
« on: April 15, 2017, 10:16:17 pm »
The discovery of the HIV test effect on the military
I had more to go along with this but do not want to wear out my welcome
An HIV memory from thirty years ago

thirty years ago before  I forget and it never gets told

I have been working on this all day now

but do not want to make waves rock the boat and tip over the apple cart or bite the hand that feeds me. or people in glass houses should not throw stones cause I am not perfect I know but some stories should be told regardless. 

well before a cure closes this dark chapter or our history and all gets forgotten to the passages of time I would like to tell some first hand HIV related story from about thirty years ago

 Before it goes unnoticed and never told and like the tree that falls  in the forest if no one is there to hear it what proof is there that it even happened at all.
some where around thirty years ago in the mid eighties  HIV and the military a first hand account

A friend told me this but it is easier to tell it  in the first person. It did not happen to me  i just heard about it through friends no it was someone else

I might have posted this already on this site or the other one they used to use. This is a story of being rounded up and being separated from the group. To be chosen as undesirable and removed. then told to move on away from the others. those in charge sorting and separating using what was thought as undesirable traits deemed not acceptable to the group as decided on by the those in charge. Or more then likely they justified doing this as a safety issue ? I do not know I was not in charge during these events?

It is about HIV and the fear of AIDS being used as a tool to out gays in the military in the eighties. One interpretation of the events. Or to use a modern term alternate facts might be used to describe these events . As told by someone who was there.


SO start telling me your story  I will write it down. and submit it would not want anyone saying prove that or else or some other stupid thing. Just say it was a story of fiction  from the internet and therefor not true right


I was called to sick call were a corpsman told me to sit down roll up my sleeve for a blood draw. I did and he had large needle and was shaking like a sewing machine. He dug into my arm twice to get his sample. ( a hole bunch of stuff happened in between getting the results and the sample being taken and before and after this mile stone event in my life)  then I was called to sick call again months later  there were a large number of service men there I recognized a lot of them as known to be open minded about sexual orientation. Most of them had clean pressed uniforms and styled well groomed  hair clean shaven. Meanwhile there was me in an oil stained uniform just pulled from my duffel bag unironed   with my hair all over the place an all around disgraceful mess.

When my turn came. I was the last one to go in. I  had spent the entire time pacing back and fourth through the crowd until I was the last one left . I could not stand still during this trying time. I thought  while standing outside and walking back and fourth what this might be about and not being able to go home to my parents if my fears were true it was an AIDS test. If it was for HIV what are they going to do. All the wile I was  thinking there is no way they are pushing me down this road. The shame of it all.  what was the reason why we called to this gathering, Being what was going on in the world HIV AIDS was the top of everyone list and anyone who had had sex might be infected especially men who have had sex with men. I thought  What was I doing there? Did I say something to someone drawing unwanted attention to myself bring accusations of impropriety or did someone turn me in accused me of having traits unacceptable  to military norms of that time . What  did they want was the mane thought running through my mind ? a million questions and no forthcoming answers. either way what  it was about I was not sure.When I went in to the building  I could hear crying in the back round. I was met in the hallway, I guess all the rooms were taken. This female commissioned officer ( maybe a doctor ) and this enlisted corpsman holding a piece of math paper with lines on it.  it looked like a large piece of litmus paper used to measure PH. He says to me we found something wrong with your blood . I looked at him then turned to her and said without missing a beat. , What my blood not red enough?In a commanding authoritative military tone a voice of conviction and purpose without fear  The female doctor looked at me and said dismissed go back to duty. The corpsman says but we found something wrong with his blood sounding disappointed and hurt  that he did not get to witness the breaking down and crying of one of those undesirables he was enjoying crushing while performing his duty on  this detail.

I could be wrong but I am just guessing that this is how most of the young men being  faced with this test reacted to it. We found something wrong with your blood? O my God you found AIDS? What makes you think you have AIDS? I think it might be because I am GAY ? Then the tears and crying started.  they then said while the guy was trying to pull himself together you will be admin discharged and sent packing for confessing to being GAY. end of story, good luck, happy trails,  move out,  nothing to see here.



I got back to my division my division officer said what are you doing back. I said I was told to return to duty, He looked very upset and even seemed a but disappointed by my return.  He later on tried to make my life as difficult as possible. A short time later on I noticed while standing in a smoking area a large number of service men going to the parking lot carrying  luggage. I said to the guy next to me where are they going ? this guy  was chewing this large lump of chaw in his mouth.  So he chews and draws his spit together and shoots from his mouth  this large  stream of dark nasty tobacco juice  on the ground and says who gives a ( F word ) were those ( another different  F word ) go.

my mom years later had told me about about what happened to my uncle who was in the military and left after 25 years he retired and left the service while I was still in the service. He moved to Hawaii where he passed away at 45 years old. My mother did not come out and say it directly but she kind of hinted and danced around the idea she thought it might have been AIDS that did him in. he died in the eighties. a bad time all around for lots of people   

They might have been testing for HIV. For  all I know it was meningitis or small pox or diphtheria or malaria I do not know they never said I did not ask. They might have been using the  fear of HIV AIDS  as a tool to trick confessions out of the accused. I do not know I did not have to face  the second half of the accusation. At that time I did not look back just kept moving foreword.  I do not know if it was denial or nonacceptance  on my part or just my own stubbornness not wanting to be labeled and separated from service in that manor.  Maybe it was fear and self preservation causing me not to want to see the truth I do not know. I do know for whatever reason I am still alive.


sorry just sharing an intense moment in my life and our history no one speaks about or even noticed. But now you know what happened. To real flesh and blood people who had been trying to get by in their lives in our great country. I do not know if any of the other service men of that time even survived I know I came close to dying but am alive now and doing well enough . Well I may not be the power player with all the big time toys the large house on the hill with great view over looking all around it. While  living  in style with money to do all the great things this life has to offer but I get by.

thank you for letting me share my experiences before they are completely forgotten and disappear from this earth unnoticed and unknown   never to be known and swallowed up removed from time like they never happened at all.

thirty years ago at this time this was what was taking place.

I may be no angel but this I do not think anyone deserves.
That division officer. I mentioned earlier  He messed with me on many occasions treating me like dirt, One time we had a beer keger for completion of a major part of our training . He kept handing me beers and smiling at me I thought wow this guy is not that bad after all.  when I fell down and passed out he waited until everyone else had left woke me up an put me behind the wheel of my car.  while placing  my wallet he had pulled from my pocket on the floor between the seat and the door. When I was siting in the drivers seat almost passed out again. He says by the way got everything you need got your wallet. I checked my pockets and could not find it. I checked for the keys and they were in the ignition already . He says better go back track were you have been and find it or else they are not going to let you back on base. So off I go driving down the road looking for my wallet all over the road having trouble seeing through drunk eyes and almost getting  killed in traffic a few times not knowing what was going on . I pull off the side of the road to pull myself together and stared down on the floor shaking from the trauma of driving with out full faculties  and I find my wallet on the floor between the door and the seat wondering how it got there at that time made no sense how it got there.  being a naturally trusting fool. I went back to the base to sleep it off and thought about the events thinking how could I come so close to ruining and maybe even ending my life like that. How lucky I was to be alive. Then many years later after looking back and thinking what kind of trusting fool I was.  I thought  how much hatred and how judgmental people can be to do such horrible hateful underhanded things.  this was after the medical blood test. the division officer  had decided  that if I was not going to go peacefully they would find another way to make sure  I left.  remember just fiction cause people do not do things like this to other people especially those in a position of authority. moral to this story do not go or stay were you are not welcome and drink with people who you think might not like you

Now that I am older I know of many experiences like that. that could have or might have been set ups perpetration of deceit with cruel intentions for the longest time I chose not to see them as an attempt to keep my spirit light hearted and free of frustration and aggravation from the cruel actions of others. . I have some that started with cruel intention toward me  that ended with blessings life sometimes does not turn out the way you expect

thanks again for letting me tell this story I had written more but I submit to much anyway should not send so much to your website . I do not think anyone wants to read this stuff but it might help my mental health to share this story.Then I might think my suffering was not for nothing. This is just an experience  I would like to share with other people with HIV.

thank you and sorry to go on so much

Offline em

  • Member
  • Posts: 691
Re: A HIV experience from thirty years ago
« Reply #1 on: April 27, 2017, 03:29:52 pm »
I had wanted to write something  in defense of the military actions only doing what they could do at that time. after  finding a way to identify the virus but had written this long drown out thing that missed the point and I had wanted to make. What It made  what I was saying seem even worse.

the spread of the fear of the virus spread faster then the actual virus. The knowledge of what to do about it. That was then this is now. good thing, that  things do change. the only consistent truth is that things do change over time
 
in the future this history will make for great entertainment about how bad things used to be?

for now it is just bothersome information that no one wants to know about or even think about for know anyway.

thank you for a place to share my thoughts .  this makes me feel my life was not a complete waste of time sharing what I have seen and lived through

again thank you .

 


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