[MillCreek]

The above story reminded me of something that happened to me. I work in healthcare administration for a large clinic. I was called out of the blue one day by a Lt. Commander in the Navy JAG. He was working on a medical disability case. It turns out that a young recruit had active asthma, but did not disclose this and was able to enlist. He made it all the way through boot camp and was in 'A' school, when he had a serious attack.

It turns out that the recruit was a childhood patient at my clinic. When he enlisted, he got a copy of his medical chart from us and submitted it as evidence that he was asthma-free for many years. It turns out that he enlisted at 18, and as a matter of fact, had a severe asthma attack at age 17. He went though his medical records, and deleted any mention of any asthma attacks since age ten and submitted the altered copy. When the medical disability board met, they had requested a copy of my clinic chart and compared the two. So the Commander was calling me to explain the discrepancy.

I actually had to go downtown to Seattle to testify over a video hookup for a hearing being held in San Diego. My wife, the retired Chief, explained that the Navy was trying to discharge him on the basis of a fraudulent enlistment, but he was trying to get a medical discharge for a service-connected disability. I don't know how the case turned out, but she told me that he was most probably given a less than honorable discharge for the fraudulent enlistment. She said that once I had testified that the copy of the chart the recruit has submitted was incomplete, the jig was up for him. Clearly, the young man wanted to be in the military very much, and I was sad at the way things had turned out for him.