Battlefield Medics

"This eye-opening journey through centuries of medical care on the battlefield is a fascinating read. The research is impressive, the writing style relaxed but what makes this book stand out is the personal stories of women and men who risked their lives to save others." - ANNE MACMILLAN, HISTORIAN, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR OF WAR STORIES Double Emmy award-winning author Martin King takes you on an enthralling journey through the history of medicine on the battlefield, covering the battles of Ancient Rome, both World Wars, Vietnam and many more. Hear true stories of the brave men and women who risked their lives to save others in the chaos of conflict, including: • Tillie Pierce, the 16-year-old girl who tended soldiers from both sides during the American Civil War • Mary Seacole a black nurse who ran her own medical center during the Crimean War • Nellie Spindler, a staff nurse in World War I who was tragically killed in the Battle of Passchendaele • John Bradmore, the man who saved Prince Henry in the War of the Roses Battlefield Medics includes first-hand accounts from veterans of various wars and conflicts, as well as a foreword by Colonel Robert Campbell of the 101st Airborne Division of the US Army. Told with King's usual flair for engaging narrative and eye for historical detail, this illustrated account provides a testament to these remarkable medics and the vital part they played in history.

The Combat Medic of today is the most technically advanced ever produced by the United States Army. Such an advanced technician requires an advanced teaching and learning system. 68W Advanced Field Craft is the first textbook designed to prepare the Combat Medic for todays challenges in the field. The ability to save lives in war, conflicts, and humanitarian inventions requires a specific skill set. Todays Combat Medic must be an expert in emergency medical care, force health protection, limited primary care, evacuation, and warrior skills. 68W Advanced Field Craft combines complete medical content with dynamic features to support instructors and to prepare Combat Medics for their missions.

Noted military historian Ted Barris once asked his father, Alex, “What did you do in the war?” What the former US Army medic then told his son forms the thrust of Barris’s latest historic journey—an exploration of his father’s wartime experiences as a medic leading up to the Battle of the Bulge in 1944–45, along with stories of other medics in combat throughout history. Barris’s research reveals that this bloodiest of WWII battles was shouldered largely by military medics. Like his father, Alex, medics in combat evacuated the wounded on foot, scrounged medical supplies where there were seemed to be none, and dodged snipers and booby traps on the most frigid and desolate battlefields of Europe. While retracing his father’s wartime experience, the author weaves into his narrative stories about the life-and-death struggles of military medical personnel during a century of service. In this unique front-line recounting of the experiences of stretcher bearers, medical corpsmen, nurses, surgeons, orderlies, dentists and ambulance drivers, Barris explores the evolution of battlefield medicine at such historic engagements as Fredericksburg, Batoche, the Ypres Salient, the Somme, Vimy, Singapore, Dieppe, Normandy, Falaise, Bastogne, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan. Barris’s sources reveal—like never before—why men and women sporting the red cross on their helmets or sleeves didn’t flee to safety but chose instead to rush to assist.

"Lasers will continue to play an important and sometimes dangerous role on the modern battlefield. At present, there is no adequate comprehensive protection against accidental or intentional exposure to lasers in combat. Thus, it is critical that the field of laser safety research develop preventative protocols and prophylactic technologies to protect the warfighter and to support military operational objectives. This book details the current state-of-the-art in scientific, biomedical, and technical information concerning the effects of military lasers on the human body. An important purpose of this book is to identify current knowledge gaps in the various areas of this interdisciplinary field, and to offer specific recommendations for laser safety research and development into the future"--

“Here in Combat Medic we see a bright and talented young physician transformed into a front line battlefield medic in the greatest battle of WWII, the Normandy Invasion. In this personal reflection, his heart and courage are played out with genuine humanity.” —Dianne Feinstein, United States Senator “It is with great pleasure that I learned through the office of the President of the French Republic of your nomination to the rank of Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor.” —Guy Wildenstein, President, the American Society of the French Legion of Honor “Dr. Kerner is a physician’s physician...the history of a gifted scholar, teacher, administrator, and most important of all, doctor.” —The Honorable Barbara Boxer, United States Senator “Combat Medic is a page turner... It is a miracle that I have this manuscript to read, that you lived to write it.” —Professor Barth Marshall, USF, Fromm Institute A decorated medical officer’s harrowing and insightful portrait of war on the battlefield from northern France to Germany. More than fifty years after the carnage at Normandy, Dr. John Kerner draws from his wartime journals and letters home to present a candid and insightful portrait of war. Medical units under his charge pushed through western Europe, improving on the treatment and transportation of the wounded during some of the most brutal fighting of the war. Amidst the mud and blood of combat, this decorated medical officer shares a time and place when living beyond each day was in serious question. Kerner’s account includes some of the greatest moments of World War II: the dramatic breakout of the Normandy hedgerow country, the thrilling dash across France in 1944, and the exhilarating seige of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. Kerner’s achievement of saving lives, often with improvised methods and shells flying overhead, is a gripping account of man’s noble humanity in the midst of horrifying inhumanity.

Medics learned quickly to ignore standing operating procedures in order to save lives but tensions within infantry units created a paradoxical culture of isolation and acceptance. This groundbreaking work examines training and combat experiences of soldiers working in Battalion Aid Stations and those who went as aid men to the line companies.

In this first history of the military ambulance, historian John S. Haller Jr. documents the development of medical technologies for treating and transporting wounded soldiers on the battlefield. Noting that the word ambulance has been used to refer to both a mobile medical support system and a mode of transport, Haller takes readers back to the origins of the modern ambulance, covering their evolution in depth from the late eighteenth century through World War I. The rising nationalism, economic and imperial competition, and military alliances and arms races of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries figure prominently in this history of the military ambulance, which focuses mainly on British and American technological advancements. Beginning with changes introduced by Dominique-Jean Larrey during the Napoleonic Wars, the book traces the organizational and technological challenges faced by opposing armies in the Crimean War, the American Civil War, the Franco-Prussian War, and the Philippines Insurrection, then climaxes with the trench warfare that defined World War I. The operative word is "challenges" of medical care and evacuation because while some things learned in a conflict are carried into the next, too often, the spasms of war force its participants to repeat the errors of the past before acquiring much needed insight. More than a history of medical evacuation systems and vehicles, this exhaustively researched and richly illustrated volume tells a fascinating story, giving readers a unique perspective of the changing nature of warfare in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Gritty, harrowing and full of courage, a testimony to the men and woman from the council estates of Britain who lived and died in the longest campaign the British Army has fought in decades a must read for any politician. AR retired Warrant Officer 1st Class 22 SAS Chantelle Taylor joined the British Army in 1998 as a combat medical technician. Ten years later she made history, becoming the first female soldier to kill a Taliban fighter in close-quarter combat while on patrol in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. In Battleworn, she tells the story of B Company, a beleaguered group of individuals who fought relentlessly to hold Nad-e Ali, a dusty, sweltering hellhole surrounded by the Taliban. A routine patrol into an area saturated with enemy fighters escalates into a seven-week siege. Facing the possibility of death daily, Taylor writes of gun battles and perilous patrols, culminating in the extraction of more than sixty-six casualties with four killed in action. A powerful story written with a humility that captures the sometimes impalpable humour of soldiers at war, Battleworn provides a testament to combat medics all over the world. It highlights the crucial role that they play in todays 360-degree battlefield.