One Mistake: Blood typing error by Army changed course of man's life

McALLEN - Joe Beltran's dog tags told you everything you needed to know about the man in 1971.

A motor pool worker, his tags said he was from Texas. He was Catholic. And his blood type was O-positive.

But, he says, one piece of information stamped into those metal tags was wrong.

Thirty-eight years later, the disabled oilfield worker knows that he bears the primary responsibility for his life and his actions. But he thinks that life would be different if he'd known then that his blood type was actually type A-positive - and he is trying to figure out if he can hold the Army responsible for the mistake.

"All these years, I've gone through three marriages and three kids, and none of them were O-positive," Beltran said last week. "I thought none of (my wives) were faithful."

He might still be married to his second wife, he said, had she not explained blood typing and heredity to him.

A nurse in Alice, she couldn't help pointing out to her husband that their 3-year-old son, J.M., could not be theirs. Children with type A blood have at least one parent with A proteins in their blood.

"That got me mad, so we split," he said. "She said, ‘I've never been with no one,' but..."

His third, a tumultuous marriage to a Mission woman, ended shortly after the birth of his third son, who also had type A blood, he said.

"I just had my doubts ... I always had doubts," he said sadly.

He still has a relationship with his older two boys, who now know about the typing mix-up, although they had trouble believing him at first. J.M. Beltran, now 29 and living in San Antonio, did not return a message from The Monitor.

Joe Beltran's first marriage broke up over more mundane details - his wife did not want to live in Hebbronville alone while he was away in Alaska with the Army - and his oldest son was raised by his sister. And his third marriage was, he said, doomed.

But he used the blood type as evidence of infidelity, a reason to walk away from two women and two small boys. He has lost contact with all three of his ex-wives.

Beltran also lost his original dog tags along the way - he wears replacements without a blood type on them at all - but still thinks about the possible damage that could have been wrought by that one little letter O.

He gave blood, for instance, at least once: Did they test it then to check the type, or assume it was O-positive, as he said?

While O-positive blood can be safely given to patients with A-positive, B-positive and AB-positive types, his A-positive blood could have sickened or killed someone without that A protein.

He said the Veterans Administration denied any responsibility for the error, since it was made by a Department of Defense doctor when Beltran entered the service.

Rep. Henry Cuellar's office is looking into the problem, but Beltran is not quite sure what he wants in terms of a response. The error, he says, is clear as day when he compares his Army intake record to the hospital's tests when he underwent heart surgery two years ago.

But how do you put a cash value on such a thing? After all, he made the decision to leave his wives and children.

Had his blood been typed correctly, he said, "I would have no doubts. Maybe I would have stayed with my kids, and maybe, been a better dad to them."