the United States Army Health Services Command was activated at Fort Sam Houston under the command of Major General Spurgeon Neel. As part of that reorganization plan, all Class II Medical Department Activities and installations were transferred from the direct control of the Office of the Surgeon General to the new command. Among the units transferred was the Valley Forge General Hospital, as well as its security force, the 250th Military Police Detachment, effective on April 1, 1973. The Medical Equipment Test and Evaluation Activity, which had been part of the United States Army Academy of Health Sciences at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, had already been transferred to the United States Army Medical Materiel Agency, a tenant activity on the Valley Forge General Hospital Installation, on February 1, 1973. In 1972, the Valley Forge General Hospital became host to a program for training Occupational Therapy Specialist (MOS 91L). The course was 21 weeks long, and converted what had been an on-the-job training program into a formal course of instruction, providing classroom training coupled with clinical experience with Valley Forge's patients. The course was fully accredited by a civilian certification agency, the Association of Occupational Therapy Assistants. Seventeen students graduated from the first class and became Certified Occupational Therapy Assistants. In early 1973, as part of Operation Homecoming, Valley Forge General Hospital received 16 former Army Prisoners of War who had been released by the Vietnamese—the most received by any of the eight Army hospitals which received POWs. These 16 men, including the only Army Medical Department officer (who was also the only military physician) to be captured, were sent to Valley Forge for comprehensive medical examinations before being released to reunite with their families. This was part of a program to send the former POWs to the medical treatment facility closest to their homes. Closure On April 17, 1973, Col Phillip Deffer, the hospital commander, announced that the hospital would be closing, stating that: The Valley Forge General Hospital was placed in an inactive status effective March 31, 1974, by Department of the Army General Order number 4, dated February 11, 1974 and it became a sub-installation of Fort Detrick, Maryland effective July 1, 1974, by Department of the Army General Order number 18, dated June 10, 1974. The site of the Valley Forge General Hospital was occupied in 1976 by the Valley Forge Christian College, now the University of