John Devis Millichamp

Who is John Millichamp? What does John represent in our country today?
John was born on March 6, 1945, in Detroit, Michigan at Women's Hospital to Elva Eulah Borton Millichamp and Edgar Leslie Millichamp. He was the third child in a family of 5 children. The Millichamp home was a small but happy home. John was a quick learner and enjoyed toys that were mechanical. He made model airplanes and boats, loved Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, and any toy that involved building things. These were some of his early loves. John was a Cub Scout. John had a paper route. He collected coins. John built a scale model, 3 foot plus, of a Steerman Bi-Wing airplane that flew beautifully. John spent a summer after high school graduation painting houses.
He was walking early and riding a bicycle before kindergarten. John attended school starting at Harry W. Miller School in around 1957, in Centerline, Michigan. He always did well in school, but because he was an early reader, he was bored most of the time. John's mom realized his abilities and regularly ensured that he had a good supply of books on hand. John was playing chess at 10 years old.
John was a good ball player and enjoyed sports in general. His special gifts were drawing and any kind of art. John's middle school was Busch School for grades 7 and 8, and he attended Centerline High School in Centerline, Michigan, graduating in 1963. He completed a course of special mathematics at Cass Technical High School in Detroit during summers. The special study completed at Cass Tech included Analytic Geometry and Calculus. He was very far ahead of his age group in the Centerline Schools. John had zoomed past his classmates in mathematics. He was president of the Science Club and received a special science award in his senior year.
John was a voracious reader and was creative, doing things like rebuilding a violin while in High school and then teaching himself how to play. John was a good artist with oils and did some excellent paintings. One of his home projects was an operational steam engine, and he assembled a 6-inch reflecting telescope. John did a number of other projects which were unusual for his age group. Projects like a sophisticated cloud chamber, and an Eccles-Jordan binary counter were on the list.
While in High School John won first place in physics at the National Science Fair. His submission project was an electronic torch that was designed to melt molybdenum. The torch took advantage of plasma discharge technology. His first-place prize included a trip to Norfolk, Virginia with the US Navy that felt his project had National significance because the Government was working on plasma technology for space craft propulsion use.
Coming from a big family required that John was expected to perform certain household maintenance such as painting and repairs and he did these happily.
The family of 7 ran on a restrictive budget and John, like his sisters applied and was accepted to Wayne State University into a special internal school at Wayne called Montieth. John majored in Mathematics and Philosophy. John graduated from Wayne-Montieth with honors in 1967, and after graduation did some substitute teaching before being drafted.
So, John Millichamp was an exceptional kid in every respect. John represented the cream of the crop for the middle class of America. His whole life was ahead of him. He was under discussion for medical school entrance with the admissions staff at Wayne University. John embodied the perfect profile of a perfect citizen. Always paid his taxes, never was arrested plus he had an excellent education. He was ready to become a doctor.
However, after John's graduation from Montieth the US Army immediately changed John's draft status from 2-8 to 1-A to fill the demand created by the Army for 25,000 additional troops destined for Vietnam. John entered the Army and his basic training started in 1968 at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Shortly during the middle of his training, he developed a problem with his legs. The Army doctors said he had a form of osteomyelitis. He was hospitalized for a little over a week, and on being let out he was sent to Ft. Lewis, Washington State, which was his debarkation point for Da Nang, Vietnam. John continued having difficulties associated with his legs, and, notwithstanding, he was subsequently sent to Vietnam and arrived in Da Nang in early January of 1969 where he was assigned to the Americal Division. The Americal Division operation at that time was in Chu Lia.
John was placed with other new members of the Americal Division in Chu Li. Even with all his education and academic achievement John was never utilized in a very productive manner. He was used as a foot soldier and what some of the family would later refer to as cannon fodder.
John was a new soldier. New soldiers get assigned the jobs none of the other members want. John was assigned onto patrol duty, an undesired and dangerous duty and was subsequently hit while on patrol. He was walking point at the front of his patrol and was hit by a rocket of Chinese origin. The date was January 30, 1969. The 2 soldiers immediately behind him were blown to bits. John's world came to an end. John's life was radically altered.
John had his legs shattered and lost his left eye. His list of problems was a long one. He was missing both legs from the knee down, or double below knee, (DBK), He was missing his left eye. The use of his left arm was impaired. John's exposure to Agent Orange provoked a diabetes situation. Numerous places on his body are permanently scarred, tattooed by the shrapnel and sand driven into his body by the explosion. He suffered from internal head injuries caused by the explosive force of the device which hit him. Unfortunately, the poor triage examination of John after he was hit, unnecessarily caused additional problems while he lay in an open aid station in Da Nang for almost 3 days, which was far too long. The medics didn't appreciate the extent of John's injuries.
After John was hit someone took his wallet, a Minox Camera, a wristwatch, a set of balanced throwing knives, and a cash cache of more than $300.00. So much for taking care of our Vets. When John's shattered legs were finally removed after he was medivacked to the Hospital Ship Sanctuary, he never regained consciousness. The hospital staff never provided John with the necessary prophylactic medicine of steroids typically given to patients with shattered bone conditions. We were told the fatty tissue between the bone and the marrow was released into his blood stream and blocked critical blood vessels in the base of his brain. He was subsequently sent to Okinawa. The Army was stubbornly refusing to return John home. John's brother and sister put an ad together in the Detroit Free Press. The ad garnered a huge attention. Bags of mails caused such attention that, thanks to Michigan Senator Hart's family, John was shipped out of Japan, and subsequently to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington DC, where he continued to lay comatose for almost 4 months.
John's family maintained an ongoing vigil with John while at the hospital. John's brother had put together a series of sound recordings and a photo Album of familiar sights. The visiting family members were able to use this to help John remember things.
John was eventually moved to the Allen Park VA Hospital. He regained complete consciousness and received physical therapy while there. He was adapted for prosthetic legs and trained to walk again. But, John was never able to completely recover, although, in time, he was able to drive a car with special adaptations, participated with some outside groups like the Disabled American Veterans, the Masons, and the Purple Heart. After being released from Allen Park, VA he went to live in his family home with his parents. John's brother added an addition onto the house specifically designed to accommodate John's special requirements of being handicapped acceptable.
John has always had a subsequent level of difficulties related to his memory since he got hit. For instance, John lost his ability to add or subtract numbers. He lost his ability to play violin. No longer could he recall vast quantities of family history. These memory difficulties and other difficulties became progressively more pronounced, and recently his degradation became so pronounced that his family was forced to place John into a private care accommodation, one of the Brookdale Care facilities specializing in memory problems and was later transferred to St. Anne's Mead in Southfield, Michigan.
John suffers from ongoing problems associated with the internal head injuries caused by the explosive force of the device which hit him. Numerous pieces of shrapnel metal get periodically removed from his body. From the time of the incident and John's identified 100% brain syndrome, John took Dilantin as a preventative against seizures. This went on until 2011.
John's father died in 1976. His passing left a huge deficit in John's life. John became concerned about placing a drain on his mother. In 1988 John purchased a home in Shelby Township. This was done quietly and the family had no idea about the event until later. Some modifications were apparently done to the building but nothing to actually accommodate all of John's needs. The structure was built circa 1900. John's brother, Les feels that the VA should never have Ok'd the purchase of a home so old and out of date.
It was not unusual for Les to receive calls from John who would get lost while driving. These went on shortly after he started driving. John didn't get lost every time he went driving, but he would get confronted with situations where he was confused. John would call and say something like, "Les, can you help me? I was driving and got mixed up. I don't know where I'm at." Les would ask John to go into a nearby business and find out where he was. Then Les would drive out and find him, then John would follow Les back to John's house in Shelby. This routine occurred many times.
John lived at the Jewell house from 1993 until November 2013. John wasn't really capable of taking care of all of his needs. He did not cook and wasn't able to address problems associated with basic cleaning.
John's health and general physical condition progressively deteriorated. John's family decided to move John from the Jewell property and into an assisted living facility, Plumbrook, in 2013. John's condition continued to deteriorate, and he started walking at night. When he wandered off and was picked up by the local police the family decided John required something more secure as a facility for his care.
The family selected Brookdale Care facility in Farmington Hills in 2016, which specialized in memory care problems. However, in 2017 John was moved to St. Anne's Mead, where he has received loving care.
Dr. Swartz from Brookdale expressed that John suffers dementia for undiscovered reason. Since John has always suffered peculiarities associated with his head injuries, and other problems, he has regularly been constrained to visit the VA Hospital every 90 days. John's diabetic condition was successfully brought under good control at Brookdale. The VA said this was identified a few years before his treatment began at Brookdale. The VA never mentioned anything about this.
At the time John was in Brookdale no mechanism existed that would allow a veteran to obtain medicine anywhere other than the VA hospital. So, when John experienced a bout with a Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) infection, he required immediate medication. The medication required did not come from the VA so the expense of that medicine did not get covered and had to be borne by John's family. To overcome that problem John currently has Blue Cross PPO as private medical coverage.
John's mental incapacities make it at best difficult for him to go to the Detroit VA Hospital for every anomaly. Why was it necessary for John or a family member to drive 20 miles to obtain medicine readily available at any drug store. With electronic communication readily available today it should be possible to overcome this obstacle.
VA patients must typically wait around for drugs, special services, and the like. As required John receives necessary private care. Recently an emergency required that he be hospitalized at Henry Ford Hospital.
John has been systematically kicked around at the VA facility. He deserved far better. For almost 47 years John's family has stepped forward to make up for the lack of good care John has required. Far too many bills have been addressed by his family. Dr Shulkin, currently being replaced as head of the VA, has refused all correspondence related to questions about John. One of the major questions is, "How can John's monthly living costs be properly supported by the United States?" Currently John's expenses exceed his compensation.
Those days when entering soldiers going into the service of the United States of America were told, "Don't worry about bad things happening because your country will always take care of you from now on," are obviously gone. The fact is a veteran's government will not take care of everything that might be wrong with them because of combat injuries. Lastly in this document is also the fact that unaware by most Americans is that disabled veterans are entitled to compensation based on the extent of injuries received in combat, but, once the maximum amount is reached other arrangements must be made for the care of the veteran. In John's case his care comes from his savings, and his family. Currently his care cost exceeds his benefit payment. Go figure.
~Lovingly submitted by the family~
Funeral Service Friday, July 26, 2024, 11am at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, 1800 W. Maple Rd., Birmingham, MI 48009. Visitation at church begins 10am.
Interment Tuesday, July 30, 2024, 1pm, at Great Lakes National Cemetery, 4200 Belford Rd., Holly, MI 48442.