Newsday - February 26, 1989
By Laurie Garrett. Newsday Staff Correspondent

Brisbois said he walked out of the Army, the only career he ever wanted, after he was downgraded from medic to laboratory technician and fought three months of taunts, curses and threats of court-martial, all because he had tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS.

"The Army did everything possible to make me want to leave," said Brisbois, who surrendered after three months, tried to kill himself and was discharged two weeks ago. "I feel I don't have a future any more. I don't want to die, but I get so depressed."

The 24-year-old soldier fled from a special wing of a barracks, known throughout the base as the "HIV hotel" and "the leper colony," where he and at least 50 others were transferred to the armed forces' first consolidated unit of HIV-infected soldiers.

That move represents an escalation in the military's battle against acquired immune deficiency syndrome, a war being waged with weapons that already include mandatory HIV testing, forced pledges to practice only safe sex, and courts-martial of homosexuals - weapons that generally have been ruled illegal in civilian society.

"Gradually the military is getting worse," said Kathy Gilbert of San Diego, head of the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild. "I think gradually we are seeing a pattern of more restrictions on what people [infected with the AIDS virus] can do."

The military defends its policies, arguing that such severity is needed to control the epidemic. "The reason we have done what we have done," said Maj. Robert Redfield, of Rockville, Md., chief scientist for the Army's AIDS research effort, "is that we think it's good medicine. And it's medicine that might work in the civilian sector as well."

At Redfield's urging, the Defense Department began the world's largest mandatory HIV screening program in October, 1985. Since then, every recruit has been screened and those who test positive are barred from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. About 5 million soldiers and recruits have been tested and 6,000 on active duty have shown up positive.

Those already in any military branch are allowed to remain until they become too sick to work, and, if possible, are allowed to continue their chosen military professions, said Susan Hansen of the Defense Department's Public Affairs Office in Washington, D.C. The official policy is that individuals "shall not be separated on the basis of their HIV status," Hansen said, adding that the Defense Department strongly discourages any form of discrimination.

No HIV-positive soldier, sailor, airman or marine is allowed to be posted overseas. Spokesmen for the other service branches said this also is their policy but they have not established a special unit for the HIV-positive. None would discuss if creating such a unit was being considered.

"The bottom line, in terms of Army policy, is readiness," said Lt. Col. Greg Rickson, of the Office of the Secretary of the Army at the Pentagon. "Is Army readiness affected by having an HIV soldier in the ranks?" The commander has to weigh that carefully."

At Fort Hood, home of III Corps and the biggest tank and artillery post in the world, then-commanding officer Lt. Gen. Crosbie Saint exercised his prerogative and ordered HIV-positive soldiers to be separated from their units. He argued that the need for readiness for deployment to Europe in case of war was more important than Defense Department prohibitions against such segregation, Army officials at Fort Hood said. Saint recently won his fourth star and now commands all U.S. troops in Europe.

On April 15, 1988, Saint's order went into effect; about 50 soldiers who had tested HIV positive, were transferred to Headquarters Command, United States Army Garrison, the adminsitrative center for the fort and a unit that would not participate in combat. Most of the men transferred that day also were lodged on the third floor of Building 21006.

"I remember that day clearly. How could I forget it?" said a recently discharged HIV-positive soldier who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Everybody knew that we were the HIVs, you know. There was no confidentiality. None at all. It was like somebody put signs around our necks saying here comes the AIDS patients. Because one day all these guys were being transferred for no reason. And everybody knew what was going on."

As part of the transfers, many, like Brisbois, lost their jobs and were given ones requiring less training. According to Maj. James Small, head of the infectious diseases department at Fort Hood, about 50 of the 70 men who have tested positive for HIV already have been moved to Building 21006. Some who are married were allowed to continue living off base.

From the outside, the building looks no different than any of the other khaki barracks that dot the 340-square-mile base where 38,000 soldiers live. Inside, security is unusually visible compared to the rest of the base as sentries hastily summon superiors to deflect a reporter's questions about the special wing on the third floor. Most soldiers refused to even acknowledge they were being questioned about the wing. Some who would talk asked that conversations take place off base and that names be withheld for fear of reprisals they are convinced will occur if they openly criticize the Army.

"Everybody might be scared to say anything," a recently discharged soldier said. "You go through the Article 15 [disciplinary actions] list and see how many are HIVs. They are giving out seven or eight Article 15s a day over there. There's no morale over there. Every night when I was there someone was put on extra duty. We never could go out at nights. Hell, it's a prison, that's what it is."

Small strongly denied those and similar allegations made by eight past or present residents of the wing. "We don't have quarantine in the Army," he said, adding that efforts are made to keep soldiers on their career tracks and to administer top-quality medical care.

Who has AIDS and who doesn't is the source of gossip in the building, which also houses soldiers who have not tested positive, said one young soldier from the special wing. "Let's put it this way - it's a driving thought on everybody's mind." And, he claimed everybody knows, or suspects, who are the HIVs.

In his case, the Army virtually announced his status. As a matter of routine, he was sent to Colorado for an AIDS work-up days after he tested positive. When he returned, a sign reading "quarantine" was taped to his locker and photographs of him and male companions were stolen. A few days later friends said they could not give him a lift into town "because they didn't want anybody with AIDS in the car," he said.

At first, he said he was relieved to be transferred to the special wing, but after a few days he realized he never would be allowed to deal privately with the pain and fear that overwhelms him. He complained that he is constantly reminded of his disease whenever he sees the other, non-HIV soldiers, wipe toilet seats with disinfectant or cover their toothbrushes with special caps they erroneously believe are needed to prevent the spread of the AIDS virus.

Other soldiers tell similar stories. "When you're in the latrine," said one, "and you hear somebody laying down a tarp in the shower because they don't want to get infected, it ain't easy. Being HIV-positive, that's enough to deal with. It's that blanket, that sword that they put over your head every single day, that's the hard thing to deal with."

Though a few of the HIV-positives are lodged in seven other locations outside the special wing, soldiers, whether or not they are infected, say throughout Fort Hood and neighboring communities the whole building is perceived as being full of AIDS patients. "Yes, it's called a leper colony," one young HIV-positive said emphatically. "Yes, it's called HIV Hotel. Yes, it has many noms des guerres. That is totally true. There is no way to get around it."

Another HIV-positive recalled that within days of his transfer, he was in Austin, more than an hour south, when he heard two civilians in a fast-food-restaurant line discussing how "they are moving all the AIDS people at Hood. They got an AIDS colony up there."

Still another HIV-positive recalled a pool game in Killeen, the town next to Fort Hood. An officer asked him to hold his beer while he made a critical shot. The two made small talk, and the soldier told the officer he worked in the special garrison unit.

The officer immediately snatched away his beer, demanding, "Did you drink any of it? I know what company you're in and I don't want to catch anything."

All of the soldiers told similar tales of how the climate on the base drastically worsened after the transfers were ordered. At least two HIV-positive soldiers said they considered suicide.

One was Brisbois. When he went Absent Without Leave, Brisbois fled 250 miles south to Robert Edwards - known to all as "Papa Bear" - director of the San Antonio AIDS Foundation. Brisbois told stories of what he called a "quarantine unit" for soldiers infected with the AIDS virus.

Brisbois "was so strung out he didn't know his left from his right," Edwards said. "So we sent him to a shrink."

Edwards and an attorney, Louis Font of Boston, who specializes in military law, advised Brisbois to surrender himself at nearby Lackland Air Force Base, where treatment of HIVs is considered relatively humane. "We advised the Army and the Air Force that he was in a delicate frame of mind," Edwards said.

Two days later, Army military police arrived at the Air Force base, put Brisbois in handcuffs and leg irons, and drove him to the Fort Hood stockade. There, he was handed a full bottle of de-lousing shampoo which bore the label "Poison" in bold print. Brisbois walked back to the showers and drank it. Guards had Brisbois' stomach pumped and returned him to the stockade.

"You got to get the picture here," Edwards said. "They take him up in leg irons, have people yell at him, and then gave him a bottle that said poison. Now what do you think is going on here?"

Maj. Tim Vane, of Fort Hood's Office of Public Relations, said the Army "cannot get into a tit for tat to Brisbois' allegations because of the privacy act and HIV."

Shortly after that incident, Brisbois was involuntarily given a general discharge from the Army. He is now fighting for medical and other veterans benefits.

While there are no studies on how many HIV-positive soldiers become suicidal, Brisbois' situation is not unique, civilian advocates said. Just outside San Antonio, at Fort Sam Houston, another soldier told of his emotional disintegration after being told he had tested positive. He proudly showed a 1986 Letter of Commendation and his 1987 Army Achievement Medal "for exceptionally meritorious service."

"It's not dealing with the HIV that's stressful, it's everything else," he said outlining how he was shuttled from job to job on base and was unable to get psychological counseling, despite repeated requests. "Every day I ask why do I put up with this, why don't I just blow my brains out?"

Shaking, with tears in his eyes, the young soldier added, "They're pushing me to it. Sometimes I think they want me to kill myself so they don't have to deal with this HIV thing anymore."

Army Intelligence Specialist Todd Hall was working at Goodfellow Air Force Base in St. Angelo, Texas, when he was diagnosed as HIV positive. The Army immediately took away his security badge, Hall said in an interview, and for 10 months had him "pulling CQ," sweeping floors, mowing lawns, mopping latrines. His belongings repeatedly were searched by the Criminal Investigations Division, seeking evidence he was a homosexual. Finally, Hall said, he was placed on a barracks floor by himself, isolated from other soldiers.

Hall said he fought off depression and harassment until he became sick enough to qualify for a medical discharge, providing him lifetime access to free medical treatment. The Department of Defense allows such discharges when the immune system becomes sharply weakened by the virus.

Most of the still-active HIVs interviewed said they hoped to obtain similar discharges. "Look," explained one soldier, "we all know we've got an expensive disease ahead of us. You know, these pills, AZT, cost $38 each and I'm supposed to take six a day. Now how in hell am I gonna pay for that on my own? Especially when we all know we ain't going to get jobs when we get out of here."

The Defense Department requires that military personnel sign a "safe-sex statement" when they are diagnosed as HIVs, promising not to have sex without a condom, and to inform all sexual partners of the positive HIV test. Fort Hood goes a step further: according to Small, soldiers at the base who are infected must sign a statement promising to have no sex with anyone but a spouse, to inform their spouse of the infection, and to use a condom. The word "sex" is not defined.

When it was his turn to sign the safe-sex statement, one soldier said he turned to his commander and said, "Well why don't you just get us all neutered and get it over with? You ain't controlling my whole being. You just don't have that much control."

But, under the Military Code of Justice, the Armed Forces do have that much control. It is illegal to be homosexual, and failing to abide by the safe-sex agreement constitutes disobedience to an officer.

In all the services, HIVs have been denied medical benefits for a variety of reasons, and many have been prosecuted for sodomy, disobedience to an officer, and other charges related to sexual activity.

According to Lt. Col. Rickson, the armed forces also are pursuing military criminal cases against a variety of those who have tested positive. For example, an airman from the State of Washington is serving a 10-year sentence after he was convicted of aggravated assault for having sex without a condom with a 17-year-old male.

"These cases have increased education across the country," Rickson said. "You have people who have recognized that people who have gotten infected have a responsibility to inform others. It is obvious that people are getting the message that unprotected sex is a dangerous practice."

But civilian attorneys who have defended HIVs against military charges say such prosecutions serve only to drive the infected further underground, preventing them from providing military public health officials with vital information that might help control the disease.

According to Fort Hood's Small, HIVs are questioned about their past sexual contacts by a civilian nurse, and their answers are kept secret. But, he said, the files can be subpoenaed by criminal investigators if a prosecution is under way.

"We all know that," said one soldier who tested positive. "So of course most people lie. They say Barbara and Diane when they really mean Bob and David."

According to Redfield, architect of the Army HIV program, the soldiers' fears of discrimination "are overplayed. The DOD has clear discriminatory laws against drug abuse and homosexuality, and yet we have been able to provide excellent health care and dissociate that from the policy of the military. Homosexuality is illegal, but it never interferes with our job as physicians to provide care."

In fact, some Army officials go further, arguing their care and AIDS research is superior to that in the civilian world.

"Yes, we have a captive group that can be studied," said Lt. Col. Bruce Beals, head of public information at Fort Hood.

"We have a lot of checks and balances in our system that do not exist in the civilian world, and these ensure that the right thing is always done."
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