Boy, I would not want to be in a military where 30% of it’s soldiers had AIDS. These men and women could potentially infect others, both through sexual activity, but also through the gruesomeness of warfare. An IED will take one man’s fluids, and inject them into another’s body, through the means of an explosion. Bone, blood, body parts, fragments with blood and body parts on it, will be part of the fragmentation of a weapon system like a mine or IED, and everyone within that blast radius could be infected. That is why you must have healthy troops in your forces, because disease or a virus like this, only adds more complexity to an already complex environment like warfare.
Now I realize that maybe there are recruitment issues in the forces there, but to actually allow these infected troops to intermingle with the healthy troops, and not expect unintended infections, is pretty stupid. I also understand there might be a bit of a political component to this as well. If your populations are all infected, they actually might have some sympathy for a policy in their military that allows AIDS infected troops to serve. Who knows, but to me, this just doesn’t make sense from a war fighter’s point of view, and I fear for the lives of the healthy troops that have to serve alongside these folks.-Matt
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South African troops with HIV win biggest battle
December 1, 2009
By Karen Allen
BBC News, Durban
On a blustery beach in South Africa’s coastal city of Durban, Dumisani Gumbi is going through a tough fitness programme. He is a platoon sergeant with the South African army. He also has the Aids virus.
Since 2001 when he was first diagnosed with the disease, his career prospects and chances of being sent overseas have floundered.
For years tens of thousands of HIV-positive military men and women like him have faced a blanket ban.
A staggering 30% of South African soldiers are infected with the Aids virus. This reality plus a recent test case have forced the South African government to review its policy.
“When we are fighting or when we are doing peacekeeping work, we are not biting the people. We’re just being peacekeepers like anyone else,” Mr Gumbi argues, dismissing fears that deploying soldiers with HIV is likely to increase the spread of the disease.