Wilford Hall Medical Center: Stiching A Year Together

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by Arthur Reyes

This post is from our 2021 Summer Internship series.

The 59th Medical Wing History office is a small office that operates for Wilford Hall Medical Center at Joint Base San Antonio, Lackland AFB TX. Its primary mission is to gather, record, and document the hospital’s annual history. Collaborating with the multiple organizations within the hospital, the history office compiles the given data and finalizes a narrative for the U.S. Air Force. Not only does it collect annual information, but it also participates in base wide events that pertain to the medical aspect of the base.

My first week at the history office was short, and with unfortunate circumstances for my new supervisor; a family emergency had taken him home to California for the week. Before he left, he was able to offer me instructions on what my job would be, and how the office operates. Since he is the only person in the office, his workload is heavy. My assignment was to evaluate data that was given to him from the hospital’s departments and prepare it for the annual narrative. This particular project is huge for one individual to complete within a few months. Because of the many departments that turn in their annual summary, they also provide business statistics of how the hospital operates, financially and logistically. Many people might think that a military entity operates with almost unlimited funding, but working with this project, I found that not to be the case. Wilford Hall, one of the Air Force’s largest medical facilities, must work with an annual budget and prove its worth along with its productions. Its history office is a place to reflect on past hospital productions.

The experiences that I gained from working at the 59th history office were interesting and broad. Not only was I learning about medical departments and their annual history, but I was learning how these stories were being told by Air Force members in their respective medical fields. Much of the information was generated from individual commander reports, but the detailed information was written on a monthly/annual form, provided to the squadrons by the historian. When the final narrative is complete, the detailed information will accompany it in a digital format as source documents. One of the toughest processes for the project was to edit the data and understand what was being said. Many of the writers would express their thoughts in medical/military language making it difficult to interpret, and the style of the writings would differ also. In some cases, the information flowed naturally. In other instances, the information was written in bullet statements. There were acronyms and military jargon that would make it difficult to interpret, but many times my supervisor was there to help. A skill I learned was to locate and weed out information that didn’t make the “cut.” I had to realize what would be included in the final narrative and what would not. I finally realized all the information was going to be stored in digital format, and since I was labeling my source documents, anyone that wanted to do any further research could identify the additional data for themselves. So, nothing was going to be deleted.

This internship was a great opportunity for learning a certain genre in history because it was both medical and military. At the same time, the historian’s position was a Civil Service job. Learning how to edit the data that was handed to me also provided a good opportunity to work on an actual product that will be published. It also offered a chance for me to get rid of the jitters of nervousness.

During my internship with the 59th, I was able to visit the 37th Training Wings history office. Walking into the office was like walking into a candy shop. The walls, and every space on the floor was covered with photos, artifacts, and many other items that pertained to the Basic Military Training (BMT) portion of the base. This is the “Bread and Butter,” the “Meat and Potatoes,” the very mission of Lackland AFB. If anyone is looking for a graduation photo of themselves or of a family member – it should be here. There are historic photos of Lackland AFB since 1947, and memorabilia of Kelly AFB since it started as Kelly Field in 1917. In this office, I can say that it needs much help; interns and volunteers are always needed. An interesting ongoing project of this office is the engraving of names on paving stones and placing them on the BMT parade ground in memory of the many Air Force members that have graduated from Lackland AFB. A story of the 37th TRW History Office can be found at here, and also on Facebook and Twitter, at “37th TRW Office of History and Research,” and you can view many projects from the history office on YouTube.

To see what Arthur Reyes is up to, check out his professional portfolio.

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