Military medicine by its very nature is challenged by the task of preserving its own history and the lessons learned. Hypotensive resuscitation (Walter Cannon, MD, World War I), the value of whole blood transfusion (Edward Churchill, MD, World War II), and the utility of vascular shunts (the Korean War) are just a few examples of the pivotal lessons “rediscovered” during the current conflicts.
Many of the lessons of modern military medicine are, in fact, not new but simply principles recognized by many previous generations of combat medics.
1 The scope of this chapter will attempt to characterize the most recent recognitions and advances that have emerged as lessons learned over the past years of armed conflict. It is an unfortunate but equally accurate truism that war advances our understanding of care of the injured patient unlike any other worldly event.
Working in an austere, and often hostile, environment with limited resources is a humbling and intensely emotional experience. Caring for those who have been injured on the battlefield has been an integral part of the fabric of medicine since the days of the ancient Greeks. It provides an appropriate focus regarding the privilege and responsibility of those engaged in military medicine. This memorable quote hangs over the door of many US operating rooms in the combat theater. Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865 With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan-to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations. Jay Johannigman, Peter Rhee, Donald Jenkins, and John B.
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