Photograph of Dr. Jules Heisler
It started with a letter to Dean Barbara K. Rimer from a Carolina School of Public Health alumna who had spent most of her career in the military. Lt. Col. Wanda Wills wanted her school to recognize the contributions of members of the military.
Wills’ own contributions are considerable, and details are available at the Jackson Library, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. But she is not alone in serving the public’s health as a member of the nation’s military.
In recognition, the School dedicated a glass panel in the Michael Hooker Research Center’s atrium. The panel inscription reads:
With gratitude to all veterans
in the School of Public Health family
for their dedicated service
Veteran’s Day
November 11, 2006
James Porto, PhD, clinical assistant professor, director of Health Policy and Administration’s Executive Master’s Program, and a former Marine helicopter pilot spoke at the event about the common goals of public health and military service. Below are his comments.
James Porto, PhD:
Photograph of Dr. James Porto
“When we think of public health, we do not typically think of the military. Amongst some faculty and students, there may even be a sense that the military tradition opposes all that public health stands for. Having served in the Marine Corps and in public health for over 17 years, I can tell you that the military and public health are similar in more ways than they differ.
- At its best, the military adheres to the ‘Warrior Creed,’ which is a pledge to serve others, in particular, those who can not protect themselves. Warriors are the public’s guardians.
- Public health serves others by working to promote and to ensure the public’s health. Without a healthy society, democracy itself would be threatened. Public health workers adhere to the ‘Hero Creed’ and are the public’s guardians also.
“Both warriors and heroes are men and women of self-denying service to others. Neither is motivated by money, because both know there are more important things in living.
“Those who have served to bring good public health practices to disadvantaged communities have seen things and done things that many in other professions do not understand. Likewise those who have served in the military, especially but not exclusively, those in conflicts have seen things and done things that others do not appreciate.
“From Roy in ‘Blade Runner’:
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the darkness at Tannh user Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain.
Photograph of glass panel in School’s atrium
“All will be lost in time like tears in rain, unless we periodically remind ourselves of the service that others have given us to protect our freedoms. This was the purpose first, of Armistice Day at the conclusion of World War I, and now, for all veterans who have served during peace as well as war. Their presence makes possible our constitutional rule, with equality, liberty, and justice for all.
“Let me read a few passages from a remarkable book by E.B. Sledge entitled ‘With the Old Breed,’ which is about his experiences in World War II on Peleliu and Okinawa.
Our food usually consisted of a cold can of C rations and rarely, a canteen cup of hot coffee. When we could brew it up, it was a treat. It was difficult to warm anything with our little heat tablets because of the almost constant rain. Sometimes I had to hunch over and shield a can of C-ration stew from the rain, because the can would fill up with rainwater as fast as I spooned the cold stew into my mouth.
We ate only because hunger forced us to do so. No other stimulus could have forced me to eat when my nostrils were so saturated with the odor of decay that I frequently felt sick. I ate little during that period, but drank hot coffee or bouillon at every opportunity.
By day the battlefield was a horrible scene, but by night it became the most terrible of nightmares. Star shells and flares illuminated the area throughout the nights, but were interspersed with moments of chilling, frightening blackness.
Sleep was almost impossible in the mud and cold rain, but sometimes I wrapped my wet poncho around me and dozed off for brief periods while my foxhole mate was on watch and bailing out the hole. One usually had to attempt sleep while sitting or crouching in the foxhole.
He apparently had been killed early in the attacks against the Half Moon, before the rains began. Beneath his helmet brim I could see the visor of a green cotton fatigue cap. Under the cap were the most ghastly skeletal remains I had ever seen–and I had already seen too many.
Every time I looked over the edge of the foxhole down into that crater, that half-gone face leered up at me with a sardonic grin. It was as though he were mocking our pitiful efforts to hang on to life in the face of the constant violent death that had cut him down. Or maybe he was mocking the folly of the war itself: (saying) ‘I am the harvest of man’s stupidity. I am the child of the holocaust. I prayed like you to survive, but look at me now it is over for us who are dead, but you must struggle, and will carry these memories all your life. People back home will wonder why you can’t forget.’
None of us would ever be the same after what we had endured. To some degree that is true, of course, of all human experience. But something in me died at Peleliu. Perhaps it was a childish innocence that accepted as faith the claim that man is basically good. Possibly I lost faith that politicians in high places who do not have to endure war’s savagery will ever stop blundering and sending others to endure it.
It was hard to believe that some of our old friends who had wanted so much to return home actually were writing us that they thought of volunteering again for overseas duty. They had had enough of war, but they had greater difficulty adjusting to civilians or to comfortable stateside military posts. We were unable to understand their attitudes until we ourselves returned home and tried to comprehend people who griped because America wasn’t perfect, or their coffee wasn’t hot enough, or they had to stand in line and wait for a train or bus.
We didn’t want to indulge in self-pity. We just wished that people back home could understand how lucky they were and stop complaining about trivial inconveniences.
“I hope that this dedication of the wall-script to honor all veterans is only a start for a School-wide effort to form closer working relationships with our brother and sister guardians in the military.”
For more information, contact Ramona DuBose, director of communications for the UNC School of Public Health, by telephone at (919) 966-7467 or by email at ramona_dubose@unc.edu.
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