Category: War & Veterans
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Resolution
Gaetan SgroPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States noun1. an expression of will or intent; a commitment In June 1965, Edward White, one of two astronauts aboard the Gemini IV mission, becomes the first American to walk in space. He floats free of the capsule for twenty minutes, and is so transfixed by the experience that Gus Grissom,…
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Psychological preparation for war: Early life experiences
Jack RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, United States I suspect that few early life experiences fully prepare one psychologically for the realities of war. Mine certainly did not. However, my introduction to post-traumatic stress and moral injury, frequent war sequelae, occurred at home while I was growing up. When I was nine years old, my younger brother…
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Combat hospital chaplain
Jack RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, United States “Chaps, how would you like the opportunity to leave your family and your church for a year?” I asked over the phone in an almost gleeful tone. “Jack, if the question was not coming from you, I would think your question was a joke.” I had served with this…
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He is not coming back
Jack RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, United States “Good evening, skipper.” Several of my senior officers were smoking an evening cigar, seated on the base of one of the large concrete barriers that surrounded our tent hospital. An evening gripe session of the ACC (Arijan Cigar Club) was in full swing. No one stood or saluted, nor…
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Negotiation
Jack RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, USA “We appreciate what you Americans have done for us in the past. But we will not allow you to come into our hospital uniformed and armed.” It was their country, their hospital, and their rules. She was the hospital administrator, a woman in a Muslim country but clearly the unchallenged…
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“Mental Cases” by Wilfred Owen: The suffering of soldiers in World War I
Alice MacNeillOxford, United Kingdom Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish,Baring teeth that leer like skulls’ tongues wicked?Stroke on stroke of pain, — but what slow panic,Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?Ever from their hair and through their hand palmsMisery swelters.…
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Thank you for your service
Jack RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, USA As a reservist, I had heard those words on numerous occasions. I appreciated and understood that those words were not directed specifically towards me, but rather to the uniform that I was wearing. Although I had spent twenty-five years in uniform, I felt unworthy and undeserving of those words. I…
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Ought to kill or ought to heal? The importance of medicine in the history of warfare
Erick ScherfSanta Catarina, Brazil All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.—Alexis de Tocqueville War has been written about since the beginning of human history. It was notably recorded by Thucydides in his account of the Peloponnesian…
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Blame
Jack RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, United States With so much intentional killing and death in war, one might think that an occasional accidental or natural death would go unnoticed and uninvestigated. This was not my experience. In war, killing and death are often viewed through a blameless lens. However, accidental death may receive greater scrutiny and…
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The Changi diary and paintings: The partnership of a doctor and an artist
Robert CraigBrisbane, Queensland, Australia Three paintings and a diary in a handwritten exercise book are in the collection of the Marks Hirschfeld Medical Museum in Brisbane, Australia. They represent an episode of extraordinary courage, survival, cooperation, and perseverance by two prisoners of war (Vaughan Murray Griffin and Dr. Burnett Clarke) during World War Two (Clarke 1989).…