"Testvet"

To explain this, I chose the name due to the fact that in May 1974, I "volunteered" for a medical research unit that was doing experiments at a place called Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland. I was assigned to Company C 2/47th Infantry, 9th Inf Div Fort Lewis Washington. I was selected along with nine other men, and we left Fort Lewis on 18 June 1974 to drive our cars to Edgewood. We arrived there on 25 June 1974. The purpose explained to us was to test uniforms and equipment for future use in the military. We were told the experiments were so "safe" that there was no reason to follow us once we left the program, at the end of our TDY in August 1974. None of us ever gave it a second thought, you trust the Officer's over you right, the Chain of Command would not allow anyone to abuse the troops now would they, not intentionally. We were poked and prodded, peed in the cup, gave up many tubes of blood and then we were classified into 4 groups, A, B, C and D, of course we did not know any of this back then, I learned this in October 2002. I knew in 1974 that I had a clearance to be used as a Level A subject for use with pyschochemicals in a note to a Dr. Drederick Siddell. What I was exposed to there, I can't tell you as I don't have a clue. We all carried cards for the police so that if we were stopped they had a telephone number to call where there was laways someone on duty 24/7 to get the cops to release us if they were holding us for suspected drug users, we all had so many needle marks we looked like junkies. Blood tests sometimes as often as every hour, injections etc. I remember sealed rooms, that had self contained ventilation systems, where they could spray something into the room as an aerosol, then pump out the contaminated air and replace it with fresh air. A state of the art lab was opened about three weeks before we arrived as a group. We were the first "test group" to utilize the facility. It was nice. We had been promised 4 day work weeks with 4 hour work days. No KP, No guard duty, no details none of the normal garbage the Army has to fill a Private's normal day. In other words we all looked on it as a three month vacation from the Army. It paid well to, with mileage allowance, per diem, and 2 dollars a day TDY pay, we each collected right around 4,000.00 dollars on 2 September when we got back to Fort Lewis. The Master Sergeant in the Finance office decided he wasn't going to pay us, as POV travel was to expensive, he wanted us to take what a plane ticket would have cost the government about 400.00 dollars each so instead of the 4,000 we were entitled to we would only get about 900.00 each, by losing the milage and 18 days per diem, 9 days each way. A staff Sergeant with us, told us no way, he went to the IG's office, he came back with a Lt Col about 15 minutes later, the Lt Col, told the Master Sergeant that the money was not coming out of his pocket and that the travel was completed, if he objected, it should have been done before we left, not after we got back. The Master Sergeant was stammering, needless to say we all got our 4,000. each. We went to a steak house in Tacoma to celebrate. Thus what we had been was Chemical Weapon and Drug Test subjects, and now I am a veteran, so I called myself TestVet the rest of all that was way to long for a screen name, and since I was one, I gave myself the nickname, besides it was better than my other alternative what else do they call a guy with the last name of Bailey why "Beetle Bailey" of course. I answer to either one lol. Mike