The Evolution of Combat Medics from the Civil War to the Gulf War. A Dissertation Subject

In review of academic writings, combat medics have had little to no discussion over the years. The time that they have it usually falls into the heroic narrative focusing on their actions and the events surrounding them, but none has asked, where do they come from, or looked at the changes that they have gone through as their mission, and role has changed with time. In looking at the material that has been gathered for this research, there is an interesting link that ties them to the Civil War as ambulances are first deployed during this war. To start off, this research Google Scholar was initially drawn from as it is helpful for creating leads. Other search engines such as JSTOR as well as ProQuest to evaluate past dissertations which were written on the subject, added additional material to draw from. These leads uncovered books and materials which were difficult to discover online and had to be purchased. Amazon and Able Books will add material that is related to encouraging sales and has been useful as they have added different memoirs that have been written by combat medics, doctors and nurses, that add to the total picture of combat medicine and where combat medics fit into the hierarchy of combat medicine. It also leads to different authors who have researched this subject back to the days of ancient Greece, where they explore the relationship between medicine and war. Doctor Richard Gabriel has two books on the subject looking back to ancient times as the second book moves into modern warfare and the role of military medicine. One of the points that the research and past authors have agreed on is that the Civil War is the start of modern medicine in the United States.

In gathering material to better understand the evolution, a wide search is being employed, looking at not just combat medics, but military medicine, as the whole system is needed to understand the evolutionary process. In the Civil War as noted there is the introduction of the ambulance with rapid evacuation, advance triage methods, and forward surgeries, but there are issues with sanitation, germ theory, and other complications which the military medical system learns from. By World War I, the same processes are still in place, but now you have low trained personnel on the ambulance they are employed at the forward surgical units cleaning and dealing with the sanitary issues that were discovered from the Civil War, the Spanish American War, and the Philippine Uprising. Then in World War II, these personnel were going out with the troops onto the battlefield. In the past historical work, the historians have showed that there is an evolution going on and hint at the causes, but the focus is on military medicine as a whole, though Tracy Shilcutt offers a view of the combat medics in World War II and notes their heroic actions and their need to adapt to the situations as they rendered aid. That leaves a question about combat medics’ training, and how it has evolved. Jack McCallum points out that the Romans understood the importance of military medicine and that they provided a surgeon to every unit so that the men knew that they were going to be treated, which gave them hope to survive if they were wounded. Combat medics, in part, serve that purpose, and the fact that they have evolved is obvious, but there are still questions about that evolution, and the catalysts involved, such as technology, and warfare. After World War II, there were many new technologies that affected warfare and military medicine, such as the introduction of helicopters, special forces, and combat medicine. Combat medics had to evolve with it. The evaluation of these things falls back into an evaluation of the organization, but also the individual, because the combat medics are the subject of this investigation. An evaluation of the organization helps to explain their creation and purpose, but the individuals are the ones that make it work, and that is as important as how they came into existence and have evolved.

In looking at this topic, it is fascinating as to why it has had so little discussion in the past as the combat medic is a key component in the chain of life on the battlefield. They are the first line of trained care that the wounded receive, and they have had an ever-evolving role in their care from the start to the finish. There is always talk about the doctor and nurses and their role in battlefield medicine and in treating the wounded. Doctors and nurses are not on the battlefield and receive the patient only after the medic has done what they can to stabilize the patient, so that they can make it back to the doctors and nurses. It is time to look a bit closer at the ones who are the first to make patient contact.