The 438th Medical Detachment Veterinary Support Services is a modular-designed unit, which consists of a headquarters, food procurement team, veterinary medicine surgical team and five veterinary service support teams. The detachment’s mission is to provide area force health protection support through food safety and protection, animal care, and veterinary preventive medicine for personnel and mil
itary working dogs (MWDs) in a theater of operations. The 438th Medical Detachment was originally constituted on 04 December 1945 in the Army of the United States as the 438th Medical Prophylactic Detachment. It activated on 7 January 1946 in Korea and inactivated on 30 September 1946 in Korea. The detachment was re-designated on 1 June 1966 as the 438th Medical Detachment, allotted to the Regular Army, and activated at Fort Sam Houston, TX. The detachment arrived in Vietnam on 15 September 1966, and served mostly in the Qui Nhon area as an ambulance detachment. It received campaign participation credit for the following: Counteroffensive, Phase II; Counteroffensive, Phase III; Tet Counteroffensive; Counteroffensive, Phase IV; Counteroffensive, Phase V; Counteroffensive, Phase VI; Tet 69/Counteroffensive; Summer-Fall 1969; Winter-Spring 1970; Sanctuary Counteroffensive; Counteroffensive, Phase VII. It was activated 26 June 1972 and organized as a field ambulance unit at Fort Belvoir, VA and again inactivated 15 September 1987. The detachment was re-designated as the 438th Medical Detachment (Veterinary Service) on 28 October 2008 and activated on 15 October 2010 at Fort Carson, CO. The unit deployed to Afghanistan in 2012 and 2017 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, as well as in 2020 in support of Operation Freedom's Sentinel.
