Photo By Michael Strasser | Three medical clinics can be found along Euphrates River Valley Road and one on...... read more read more
FORT DRUM, N.Y. (Nov. 1, 2024) -- Three medical clinics along Euphrates River Valley Road and one on Enduring Freedom Drive offer a variety of services to 10th Mountain Division (LI) Soldiers at Fort Drum, including primary care, dental care, physical therapy, and optometry. Each facility is named after an Army medical professional who contributed greatly to the military and whose actions saved lives both on and off the battlefield.
Bowe Troop Medical Clinic
The Bowe Troop Medical Clinic honors Pfc. Matthew C. Bowe, a health care specialist assigned to 1st Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team.
Bowe, from Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, was born on June 17, 1987. He was an avid hunter, camper, and angler, who also loved to compose music and sing.
After graduating from Moon Area High School in 2005, Bowe enlisted in the Army that summer. After completing basic combat training at Fort Benning, Georgia, he received medic training at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.
Bowe served as a trauma specialist at Fort Drum until he deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in August 2006.
On Sept. 21, 2006, an improvised explosive device detonated near Bowe’s vehicle and severely wounded a fellow Soldier. Bowe rushed to provide aid, and then he shielded the Soldier when a second IED exploded. Bowe was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with V device for his actions.
On Feb. 19, 2007, Bowe was killed in action when his vehicle was hit by an IED near Baghdad.
Troop Medical Clinic II was renamed the Bowe Troop Medical Clinic during a ceremony on July 22, 2016, with senior leaders, friends, and family members in attendance.
Marshall Dental Clinic
The Marshall Dental Clinic is named after Capt. John Sayre Marshall, the “Father of the Army Dental Corps.”
Marshall’s military service began at the age of 18 when he enlisted in the New York Volunteer Cavalry in 1864 and fought during the Civil War. He participated in several battles, including Appomattox where Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.
Originally from England, Marshall’s family immigrated to the U.S. in 1858 and settled in Upstate New York. He returned home after the war to complete his schooling in 1868. That year, Marshall apprenticed for two local dentists and then began practicing dentistry himself. In 1876, he earned his doctorate degree in medicine from Syracuse University, where he joined the faculty as a professor of oral and dental surgery.
He opened a private practice in Chicago, while serving as an instructor at Northwestern University School of Medicine around 1883. At this time, Marshall also wrote scholarly texts on injuries, diseases, and dentistry. He eventually became dean of the Northwestern University Dental Department.
In 1901, Marshall served as president of the Board of Examining and Supervising Surgeons, which received congressional authorization to select the first group of U.S. Army Medical Department contract dental surgeons.
The legislation stipulated that dentists would not serve as Soldiers, but as contract dentists with the pay grade of a first lieutenant. Marshall was appointed as supervising contract dental surgeon.
On April 13, 1911, Marshall became the Army’s first commissioned dental officer when Congress authorized a dental corps composed of officers. He would not serve in that position long, because at age 65, Marshall was forced to retire from the Army on June 17, 1911, due to mandatory age limitations.
At the start of World War I, his request to return to duty was denied, again because of his age. Marshall continued to research and write about dentistry until his death in 1922.
The North Riva Ridge Dental Clinic was memorialized as the Capt. John Sayre Marshall Dental Clinic on March 31, 2009.
Stone Dental Clinic
The Stone Dental Clinic honors the memory and service of Col. Frank Powell Stone, an accomplished Army Dental Corps dental surgeon.
Stone graduated from the Dental Department of Washington University (Missouri Dental College) in St. Louis, in 1900. On May 13, 1901, he reported to the Dental Examining Board in Washington, D.C.
Stone passed the examination to become one of the original 30 contract dentists appointed to the U.S. Army Medical Department. He served as a contract dentist in the Philippines until he returned home to Missouri in 1903 due to illness.
Reassigned to the Presidio of San Francisco in 1903, Stone worked with Col. John Marshall until his next assignment at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, in 1907.
Stone declined another deployment to the Philippines, and his contract was annulled on March 20, 1907. He wrote to the U.S. surgeon general, citing health and family reasons for not wanting the overseas assignment.
Between October 1907 and January 1911, Stone was unable to pass the physical examination on two different occasions to qualify as an Army dental surgeon. In the interim, he maintained a private dental practice.
In July 1910, Stone passed the exam but there were no vacancies. He finally received his commission as a first lieutenant on June 28, 1911.
Following assignments in Georgia, Florida and Vermont, Stone returned to the Philippines from 1914 to 1916. Stone served as the 88th Division dental surgeon at Camp Dodge, Iowa, as the U.S. entered World War I. He deployed with the division to France in August 1918. Three months later, he served as 6th Army Corps dental surgeon.
After the war, Stone had several assignments across the U.S. In 1934, Stone was named Dental Division chief in the Surgeon General’s Office. Then in 1937, he became the eighth chief of the Army Dental Corps, a position he held until retiring in May 1938.
The clinic was memorialized on Feb. 4, 2010, during a ribbon-cutting ceremony to introduce the community to the new 18,400-square-foot facility.
Conner Memorial Troop Medical Clinic
The Conner Memorial Troop Medical Clinic is dedicated to the memory of Cpl. William Rodney Conner, a medic with the 87th Mountain Infantry Regiment, one of three regiments that deployed with the 10th Mountain Division in Italy during World War II.
Conner was born May 19, 1922, in New Canaan, Connecticut. He excelled on the football team at New Canaan High School but proved to be multi-talented. Conner played the clarinet, piano, and saxophone. He intended to pursue a major in music at Boston University before he was drafted into the Army.
During an attack near Cimon Della Tiella, while supporting the lead platoon in battle, Conner rushed to aid a wounded Soldier less than 50 yards from an enemy position. Aware of the intense fighting all around him, he moved from cover, fixed his Red Cross insignia on a stick, and reached the fallen comrade.
Conner died by enemy fire while administering casualty care on March 3, 1945. He was 23. In his last letter home, Conner wrote: “It is a beautiful day here with that famed Italian sunshine which has been less rare of late. From where I am, I can look down on a peaceful valley lying among terraced hills. What a crime that war should go hand in hand with this!”
Conner was awarded the Purple Heart and Silver Star for his actions that day.
His citation read, in part, “ ... with concern only for the welfare of the stricken, (he) maneuvered about under the heaviest barrages to treat the wounded. Being constantly alert to the call for aid, fearing no danger for himself, he was quick to see a comrade lying helpless in an exposed area less than 50 yards from an enemy position.”
Fort Drum officials conducted the memorialization of the clinic in honor of Conner during a ceremony in October 1989.
The memorialization also served to keep the historical connection between the original mountaineers of the division and the new light infantry Soldiers who were arriving at Fort Drum following the massive construction project to transform the installation into the home of the 10th Mountain Division (LI).
| Date Taken: | 11.01.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 11.01.2024 08:15 |
| Story ID: | 484413 |
| Location: | FORT DRUM, NEW YORK, US |
| Web Views: | 17 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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