HIV/AIDS and the military: what you need to know
In recent years, we’ve witnessed a significant amount of progress in scientific and medical research related to the management and treatment of HIV/AIDS. In 2014 alone, gene-modification technologies and vaccine trials were presented at the annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Boston. In addition, CROI 2014 discussed the positive impact of pharmaceutical interventions like Pre-Exposure Prophylactics (PrEP) in high-risk communities, including and perhaps especially in enclaves of men who have sex with men (MSM). A comment on Truvada (a highly popular brand of PrEP) is now a recognizable and almost expected element in many a gay man’s dating/hookup profile (a positive addition to our Grindr Grammar, if you will).
Ostensibly, for all persons living with HIV, such developments signal the beginning of a shift in the cultural understanding we have coalesced around HIV/AIDS, and signal a deadly blow to the enduring stigma and discrimination that beleaguer HIV-positive people in this country every day. In other words, it has become viable to imagine HIV-positive persons participating in more social and political institutions than our cultural narrow-mindedness has heretofore allowed.
The US Armed Forces doesn’t seem to be one of those institutions.
Army Regulation (AR) 600-110, drafted in 2014, is titled “Identification, Surveillance, and Administration of Personnel Infected with HIV.” Chapter 5, Section 3 lists the US Military’s official HIV testing guidelines. For instance, 5-3-a states:
Applicants for accession who have no military status of any kind at the time of testing and who are confirmed HIV infected will not be enlisted or appointed in any component of the Army.
An accession, in militaristic terms, is any given cohort of applicants that the Army decides fits the bill to make the Basic Training rounds. If you are found to be HIV-positive during the mandatory medical examinations that are part of your application to join the Armed Forces, you will automatically be denied.
In case you are wondering what happens to soldiers who contract HIV while they’re on a military deployment, there are special protocols to be followed if that is indeed the case. For example, Chapter 6, Section 3 of AR 600-110 offers assignment limitations for soldiers on active duty who contract HIV after enlistment:
HIV infected Soldiers will not be deployed or assigned overseas. HIV infected Soldiers will not perform official duties overseas for any duration of time. Soldiers confirmed to be HIV infected while stationed overseas will be reassigned to the United States.
While various official sources note that these measures are instituted for “maximum public and personnel protection” and can be petitioned on a case-by-case basis, it’s an extremely taxing process and often requires you take an official leave of absence or a significantly limited number of US-based assignments, depending on each case and the soldier’s physical condition. If this isn’t the definition of corpus timuerunt, I don’t know what is.
