Jack Ditto of Greenwood is a veteran of World War II and Korea, and when it comes to cutting through red tape involving injured people, Ditto knows how to get things done, pronto.
On Monday, Ditto was recognized for that skill by the Mississippi Medical Reserve Corps as part of the Memorial Day program at American Legion Post No. 29.
"We had protocols for triage of the injured. The forms involved more paperwork than you can do in a disaster," said Dr. Anita Batman, who served as the commander of the Mississippi Medical Reserve Corps.
Batman told the crowd the state's methods for keeping track of people injured in Hurricane Katrina were in bad shape.
"We had some pretty sorry protocols for dealing with the wounded. Some high federal people tried to redo it and it was worse than ever. Some very smart state people tried to redo it and it was worse than ever," she said.
One day, Batman literally backed into Ditto at a church parking lot and that started the ball rolling, she said.
"I told him, 'I'm going crazy with these forms. This is so bad. We've tried it on paper; we've tried it on a computer,'" Batman said.
She said it took Ditto half an hour to design a small printed card that travels with each patient.
"He pointed out that there are only three facts you need. He separated those with little, swift lines," Batman said.
Ditto said his contribution was a small one.
"There wasn't anything to that," he said.
Ditto said it was a take off of the U.S. Army's World War II-era admission and disposition sheet, which contained the patient's name and address, diagnosis, and where they were received from.
It proved an accurate way to track soldiers. "In the old days, there weren't computers," he said.
Ditto said the methods used for accurately tracking personnel injured in battle hasn't changed much since the Civil War.
That's when Dr. Jonathan Letterman, the Union's director of medicine, developed the three-tiered system of field aid stations for lightly wounded soldiers, field hospitals for more seriously wounded soldiers, which require surgery, and large hospitals for longer-term care.
By having a simple form, it was easier to track patients as they moved through the system.
"They'd track him on back to his home," Ditto said.
Batman said Ditto's institutional memory has solved a persistent problem in the age of computers.
"I guess every problem has been solved before," she said.
Ditto was modest in accepting his award.
"All I did was tell an old World War II tale over again and put it to work," he said.
