The United States Army Special Forces--Walter Reed Army Institute of Research Field Epidemiological Survey Team (Airborne), 1965-1968.

In 1965, an innovative concept in field medicine was launched in the form of a team of highly-trained, multi-disciplined AM-EDD specialists who were assigned to the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and attached to the 5th Special Forces Group (Abn) while in Vietnam. Officially designated the U.S. Army Special Forces--Walter Reed Army Institute of Research Field Epidemiologic Survey Team (Airborne) (WRAIR-FEST), these personnel took their investigative skills into some of the more remote areas of Vietnam to study disease transmission in militarily hostile circumstances. From 1966-1968, numerous important studies of arthropod-borne diseases, including malaria, scrub typhus, and plague, and of gastrointestinal disorders, medically important arthropods, and cutaneous diseases were successfully conducted.