Vietnam and The Persian Gulf War
In 1966, recognizing the dire need created by the Vietnam War for physicians in the military, Dr. Cifarelli voluntarily enlisted in the United States Army. He served in Vietnam from 1966 through 1967, attaining the rank of Captain and serving as Chief of Medicine at the 67th Evac. Hospital in QuiNan, Vietnam. He was awarded a Bronze Star and a Letter of Commendation for his service during the war.
Dr. Cifarelli's respect and admiration for military service never faded. In 1982 he re-joined the Army, in its reserve unit as a Lt. Colonel. Two years later he attained the rank of full Colonel and continued to serve in the U.S. Army Reserves Medical Corps through most of the 1990s. During that period he was named Chief of Medicine and later Commander of the 349th General Hospital in Los Angeles, a unit called to serve in the Persian Gulf War. He also commanded the 458th MASH Unit and later served as a Consultant to the U.S. Army Surgeon General, obtaining a top secret clearance at the Pentagon. As the millennium arrived Dr. Cifarelli finally retired from the military.
Read more about this topic: Philip S. Cifarelli, Military Service
Famous quotes containing the words vietnam and, vietnam, persian, gulf and/or war:
“Above all, Vietnam was a war that asked everything of a few and nothing of most in America.”
—Myra MacPherson, U.S. author. Long Time Passing: Vietnam and the Haunted Generation, epilogue (1984)
“I told them I’m not going to let Vietnam go the way of China. I told them to go back and tell those generals in Saigon that Lyndon Johnson intends to stand by our word, but by God, I want something for my money. I want ‘em to get off their butts and get out in those jungles and whip hell out of some Communists. And then I want ‘em to leave me alone, because I’ve got some bigger things to do right here at home.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“The threadbare trees, so poor and thin,
They are no wealthier than I;
But with as brave a core within
They rear their boughs to the October sky.
Poor knights they are which bravely wait
The charge of Winter’s cavalry,
Keeping a simple Roman state,
Discumbered of their Persian luxury.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“And into the gulf between cantankerous reality and the male ideal of shaping your world, sail the innocent children. They are right there in front of us—wild, irresponsible symbols of everything else we can’t control.”
—Hugh O’Neill (20th century)
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.... A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their own free choice—is often the means of their regeneration.”
—John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)