By Vicky Falcon
NAVAIR Headquarters Public Affairs Office

EDITOR'S NOTE: PLEASE USE A SIDEBAR TO HIGHLIGHT NEXT BLOOD DRIVE - WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 0900-1300, BLDG. 2272, PAX RIVER.

As our nation continues to wage a war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, injured servicemen and women also continue to arrive at the National Naval Medical Center (Bethesda), the Malcolm Grow Medical Center (Andrews Air Force Base) or the Walter Reed Medical Center (Fort Belvoir) for surgery and treatment.

Key to those troop’s recovery is an adequate supply of blood – something that the Armed Services Blood Program is committed to providing. That supply, however, has become difficult to maintain. Due to the war on terror, the number of troops in harms way who may require blood and blood products is increasing, while the number of career military personnel eligible to donate has decreased to just 43%. In the meantime veterans, retirees and family members are continuing to have surgeries – many of them needing blood or blood products to sustain their life.

“We are facing a quandary in the military,” said Capt. David Wade, Commanding Officer, Naval Health Clinic, NAS Patuxent River. “Due to travel restrictions placed on potential blood donors (to safeguard the blood supply from infectious diseases) and the deployment tempo of our active duty military, an increasing percentage of service members are ineligible to donate. To get adequate amounts of blood for the Armed Forces Blood Program we are increasingly depending on donations from civilians.”

The Armed Services Blood Bank Center, located at the National Naval Center in Bethesda, supplies blood and blood products for DOD facilities and operations around the world. The organization needs between 700 and 900 units of blood per month to support the Armed Services Whole Blood Processing Lab (which directly supports Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom and other contingency operations) as well as the medical centers listed above.

The Armed Services Blood Program holds blood drives every two months at Pax River. The next blood drive will be on August 10 from 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. in the atrium of Bldg. 2272, the RADM William A. Moffett Building.

“Each month the Armed Services Blood Program ships 219 units of blood products in support of the ships at sea and medical treatment facilities overseas,” said Wade. “Our goal for our share of that is 150 units at each of our blood drives.”

That goal has never been met at Pax River, though. According to Lt. DeWeese Stewart, Armed Services Blood Program coordinator at Pax River, the record blood collection for Pax River was 75 units of blood.

“All DOD personnel can donate, including active duty, civilian and contract personnel,” said Stewart. “We’ve only got 3000 active duty here at Pax, but we’ve got nearly 19,000 government employees and contractors, so we shouldn’t have a problem reaching our goal.”

According to Stewart, blood donation takes approximately 45 minutes from start to finish. Free T-shirts, cups and pins will be given out to all those who donate and refreshments are available.

“There are a number of reasons for a blood donor to be ineligible,” said Stewart. “The most common include travel outside the U.S. to Europe or Korea, or recent tattoos or body piercing.”

For more information about the blood drive or for questions about eligibility, contact Lt. DeWeese Stewart, 301-342-1432 or [email protected]