Nothing in my conservative upbringing or medical training prepared me for the volume of sexually transmitted infections that passed through our clinic. It was our job to prevent or treat which should have been a warning for Kellan. 

Army medics tried to control the problem at its source. The infectious disease officer at the 8th Army Field Hospital kept a photo album on his desk which held pictures of every bar girl in Nha Trang. When a GI came in for treatment he would be asked to look through the “rogue’s gallery” and identify the source of his infection. The bar she worked for would then be placed off limits until the girl agreed to be treated. 

The Air Force focused more on education. One of my responsibilities was to give classes about risks, prevention and treatment. Neither the Army nor the Air Force approach worked well. 

One day while walking through town, I passed a shop that sold a variety of chrome plated items. On display was a tall garish trophy with fierce Chinese dragons for handles. In what I thought was a flash of brilliance, I bought it and had it engraved with the words, “For service under and beyond the call of duty”. It soon became an unwelcome traveling award. 

The cases were tallied monthly but reported as the total we would treat over a year’s time for every thousand troops assigned to our base.  Our annual incidence approached 125 cases/thousand troops/year. This would work out to one infection for every 8 airmen, if it weren’t for the fact that some were repeat offenders. 

Because their buddies were hesitant to talk about their diagnosis, I knew that the airmen had no idea how prevalent the problem was. To drive the point home, I decided that the squadron with the highest monthly incidence would have to listen to my lecture. At the end of the talk I presented the trophy to the squadron commander and asked him to display it prominently on his desk for the next month. I don’t know about long term results but no squadron won the trophy twice in a row. Short term, the incidence dropped precipitously.

Shortly after Kellan’s arrival, it became apparent he had a weakness for women and he wasn’t selective. Despite the obvious risk, he was soon treating himself. After one episode, he naively said he didn’t understand how it happened because he had given the girl a shot of penicillin several hours before.

Kellan passed through London where I was stationed following my assignment in Viet Nam. We had not seen each other since his unceremonious transfer to the “Mekong Delta”. Surprisingly he told me he, too, was thinking about an anesthesia residency after his discharge from the service. I thought it was an unlikely choice of specialities for someone so restive and confrontational. 

Years later, I found Kellan’s name in a membership directory published by the American Society of Anesthesiologists. He had taken a staff position at the Oschner Clinic in New Orleans. I considered contacting him, but somehow never got around to it. 

In 1995, a doctor from the Oschner Clinic joined the cardiology group at Eisenhower Medical Center. Over lunch one day, I asked if he knew Kellan Walker. He replied that he had known him. The way he said it led me to ask why he used the past tense. He told me that Kellan had suffered an agonizing death from AIDS.