Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 1975 Fort Dix, New Jersey.. Our unknowing victim, Kevin, awakes to the cruel sounds of the US Army. He rises, showers, dresses and runs quickly to formation. He has been 17 years old for a total of 12 days, today! All he can think about is turkey! It is his 1st full day in the Army. He arrived late
last night onto the post with just enough time to go to bed. He and a bus load of poor New York City kids file
into the dinning hall for breakfast. They are yelled at, prodded, and threatened with severe discipline! Welcome to the Military! The Army Recruiter never mentioned this!

After breakfast, all the new recruits, were marched over to a building that is referred to as a "Reception
Center". The building is a one floor sprawling complex of mazes, and runs the length of three football fields.
The first thing they have the recruits do, is to receive vaccinations! This is to protect everyone from persons
that may bring infectious "bugs" with them to Basic Training. The teenage boys (most are 17) are given two
"Adenovirus" pills to swallow in front of a Sergeant. They are then ordered to "gulp some water!" in order to
rinse the pills down their throats. The mouth is inspected because privates can not be trusted to follow orders yet. Each sleeve is rolled up and two pneumatic air guns are placed against the bare flesh and fired! If the recruit jumps, his arm will be slashed like a razor cut! Shots are given in each arm. They move down the twin lines like cattle. The first ones "brave enough" to volunteer, they are told, will be given an extra time break - until all are done. Kevin volunteers, of course, to be one of the first.

He is hospitalized within a week with a fever and a "symptomless infection". After three days, and two nights,
Kevin returns to his unit and continues his training without any further medical incident for years.

Somewhere in middle America, Kevin's future friend, Mark, has been hospitalized ,also, for 4 days with a
"symptomless infection". Mark is only a year older than Kevin. They both pass their basic training course and
are sent to Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas were they are destined meet the first day. Both are friendly,
curious and affable kids. Both have big dreams for the future.

Mark goes home on leave and marries Toni then returns to Texas. Mark and Kevin then graduate from Medical Corpsman school, they say good bye to each other, and go home on leave, prior to being sent to West Germany for three years. April 5, 1976, Both Mark and Kevin miss their flights to Europe and are reunited again in Charleston, South Carolina on some Air Force tarmac.

They fly to West Germany and spend the night, complements of the Army, in a old German "Bundespost" in
Frankfurt. The following morning they are sent on a train to beautiful green Southern West Germany. Since
both are good friends by now they start off as room mates. They are assigned to an Ambulance unit. Mark gets an apartment for Toni, his wife, and Kevin moves in for a few months. After commuting each morning for a few months Kevin decides it is easier to live back "on post" and moves there. Mark and Toni get another larger apartment with another couple with a cute three year old child named "Christina".

In mid December, 1976 Mark is tested, and hospitalized for "viral Hepatitis" after he appears yellow. He is one
of the first to be infected on our very small (750 soldiers) Army post. Hepatitis, at the time, was described as
only "bacterial", or, "viral". Mark had viral! He was told by the Military Hospital Doctor that he most likely
caught it from "contaminated water pipes on post!". Five to six other soldiers were eventually admitted with
Mark. Over the next year, one by one, most of the unit is ultimately hospitalized for Hepatitis B, as it was now
called. Looking back, no one ever came to the post to investigate this "outbreak". A year later Kevin returned from working with N.A.T.O. Forces in Denmark and England.

He was one of the last to be infected on post. He had been gone most of the year from the post, so his
"infection" was mysterious. There were local girls that frequented the small club on post. The club was
tenderly referred to by the soldiers as the "crotch"! They also had on their post the "armpit" movie theater, a
four-lane bowling alley complete with 35 brain dead rednecks! There was not much to do except leave the post for entertainment.

Kevin was up on the West German Border, in Vilsak. He was with a group of fellow unit members that sat in
an ambulance, on the tank ranges. in the month of January. Kevin watched as US tanks bombed targets on
long tank ranges and honed their military firing skills. The medics read and told stories of home and just plain
froze their dignity off! A phone call from their unit, located 6 hours away, determined that they would drive to
Nurenburg in their Ambulances and be tested with the others. Five out of ten were positive for "viral" Hepatitis, Kevin was in that half that was positive. HBV had now crossed paths with Kevin. Was it a "new" HBV? Or was it the old tainted "serum" HBV? Kevin traveled with his friends for six hours into the cold evening, back to the post. They changed clothes and were driven over in a company Ambulance to 5th General Hospital, Bad Canstatt, West Germany. They were all admitted into the Army hospital and placed on the Medical Ward. Kevin and his friends watched TV and flirted with the nurses from the warmth of a dry bed.

One week later, an epidemic of "Russian Flu" patients were brought into the hospital. Suddenly, Kevin and his friends were proclaimed "Cured!". Never treated, but cured never the less! Both Mark and Kevin had now been infected with both an adenovirus and the "old HBV".

Meanwhile, back in the blood supply.......evolution has changed our original mixture into some close looking
cousins. Let us assume that Kevin and Mark have the original virus from the Yellow Fever/HBV Virus test
conducted back in 1942. The virus does tend to follow the military and this could be it or a close "variant". I.V.
drug users or prostitutes may have brought it on post, but how did most get it? Even if you "injected" the virus into all 750 soldiers, many should of been able to defeat the virus with their bodies immune system response.

If you ran a test, one half would be a control group. The 5 medical units on post made up 90% of the reported
cases. Was this due to Army testing? Or the ability to have access to disposable syringes? Was this a
"planned experiment" on them? Or is there an easy explanation?

Mark had a brother stationed over there in West Germany that was assigned to a highly classified military base. His brother who was also there during the time Mark was there but, was over 500 kilometers away! He
remembers back, twenty years later, of a strange occurrence one night on his secluded post. The soldiers were brought down from the barracks one Friday night/morning, in their underwear to file into waiting vans that had their engines constantly running. They were told that they all were going to donate blood. After the "voluntary contribution", the soldiers were told, "it never happened". Maybe there is no connection. Maybe we are all sick because....of....what?

Let us assume that the adenovirus does what is always does, "facilitate gene transfer", and "increase
replication rates". Let us just say that an adenovirus speeds up evolution in the host! The last time Kevin saw
Mark and Toni in West Germany was when Kevin came over to see their beautiful new baby. A three-day-old
daughter named Stephanie. Mark and Kevin part and go their separate ways once their service obligation is
up by November, 1978.

As they leave West Germany, and their youth and future good health behind, they bring with them, to America, the Virus in their bodies. This will force them to meet-up again, one day - more than twenty years later!

Hepatitis C is born in their bodies and begins to replicate quickly because of the actions of the "Adenovirus".

Over one half of that post was infected in 1977. No one ever asked, no one ever came to check! Some medical units on that post were at near saturation levels of Hepatitis Infection. The medical units had as high as 75% in temporary casualties. These units simply "quarantined" the barracks, and that was how the soldiers were medically treated. At least Mark and Kevin had Nurses and documentation! Those soldiers will never have a record of their illness. There will be no "admission records", or "clinical notes".

These soldiers will never be able to prove that they acquired an "old" HBV in Germany. The Veteran's
Administration twenty years later will look forward to bargaining with these sick veterans - How convenient!