The Medical Service Corps traces its beginnings to the
establishment of an Apothecary General during the American
Revolution, and the creation of the Ambulance Corps and US Army
Storekeepers in the Civil War. It was during the Civil War that
Surgeon Jonathan Letterman, Director of the Army of the Potomac,
realized a need for an integrated medical treatment and evacuation
system with its own dedicated vehicles, organizations, facilities,
and personnel. The Letterman plan was first implemented in
September 1862 at the battle of Antietam, Maryland, and has
continued as the basis of Army medical doctrine ever since.
The next major development of the Medical Service Corps occurred
in World War I. The Army’s requirement for medical and scientific
specialty officers to support combat operations resulted in the
creation of two temporary components: the US Army Ambulance Service
established on 23 June 1917 as a descendent of the Ambulance Corps,
and the Sanitary Corps, established on 30 June. Today the Medical
Service Corps mirrors the Sanitary Corps, which quickly expanded to
nearly 3,000 officers during World War I. The Sanitary Corps
enabled the Medical Department to make available to itself a group
of officers commissioned in specialties which were at the forefront
of the medical technology of the day. Officer’s of the Sanitary
Corps served in medical logistics, hospital administration, patient
administration, resource management, x-ray, laboratory engineering,
physical reconstruction, gas defense, and venereal disease control.
They were dedicated members of the medical team that enabled
American generals to concentrate on enemy threats and not epidemic
threats.
It wasn’t any different to be killed in World War II than it was
during the Civil War or World War I. However, if the World War II
GI was wounded by a bullet, shrapnel or fallen by a disease such as
malaria, without killing him, his chances for survival were much
greater than his ancestor in the Civil War. During the Civil War,
50 percent or more of the men admitted to hospitals died, during
World War I, it was 8 percent, World War II, 4 percent. The main
objective of the medic was to get the wounded away from the front
lines. Many times this involved the medic climbing out from the
protection of his foxhole during shelling or into no-man’s-land to
help a fallen comrade. Once with the wounded soldier, the medic
would do a brief examination, evaluate the wound, apply a
tourniquet if necessary, sometimes inject a vial of morphine, clean
up the wound as good as possible and sprinkle sulfa powder on the
wound followed by a bandage. Then he would drag or carry the
patient out of harms way and to the rear. This was many times done
under enemy fire or artillery shelling.
Grant me, oh Lord, for the coming events;
Enough knowledge to cope and some plain common sense.
Be at our side on those nightly patrols;
And be merciful judging our vulnerable souls.
Make my hands steady and as sure as a rock; when the others go down
with a wound or in shock.
Let me be close, when they bleed in the mud;
With a tourniquet handy to save precious blood.
Here in the jungle, the enemy near;
Even the medic can't offer much lightness and cheer.
Just help me, oh Lord, to save lives when I can; Because even out
there is merit in man.
If It's Your will, make casualties light;
And don't let any die in the murderous night.
These are my friends I'm trying to save;
They are frightened at times, but You know they are brave.
Let me not fail when they need so much;
But to help me serve with a compassionate touch.
Lord, I'm no hero -- my job is to heal;
And I want You to know Just how helpless I feel.
Bring us back safely to camp with dawn;
For too many of us are already gone.
Lord bless my friends
If that's part of your plan;
And go with us tonight, when we go out again.
Skippy has worked as an Air Force Medic and EMT for 18 years and
has earned the EFMB shown in the background. In civilian terms, the
medic has been approximately equivalent to a cross between a
paramedic and a physician's assistant. Due to our litigous society
now, their scope of proactice in peacetime is closer to the EMT's
"stabilize and transport." This can become a liability, however,
when troops are depending on medics in the field to save their
lives, but have not been allowed to train adequately back home.
Well, at least the lawyers have gained from it--right?