Category: War & Veterans
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Caring for “Our Boys”
Joanne MurrayPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States When the United States entered World War I in 1917, those in the U.S. Army Medical Department found themselves handling new types of wounds as a result of new methods of modern warfare. The staggering volume of war-related illness, complicated by the influenza pandemic, added to their challenges. These caregivers…
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In pursuit of parsimony in combat research
Jennifer HatzfeldFort Detrick, Maryland, United States Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are those of the author, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. It was a short walk back to the research office, down a relatively clean, well-lit…
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The splints
Ivana BokanSplit, Croatia I remember my experience in the Homeland War clear as day. It was the spring of 1991, and the war was just starting. As a medical nurse in the Crisis Health Center, my task was delivering medical equipment and medicines in preparation for the possible attack. “They are definitely going to attack…
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Peleliu as a paradigm for PTSD: The two thousand yard stare
Gregory RuteckiCleveland, Ohio, United States “I noticed a tattered marine…staring stiffly at nothing. His mind had crumbled in battle…his eyes were like two black empty holes in his head…Last evening he came down out of the hills. Told to get some sleep, he found a shell crater and slumped into it…First light has given his…
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Justice denied: The Katyn massacre, Kosciusko squadron, and the Polish soul
Gregory RuteckiOhio, United States “The Nazi terror intensified…Poland became the home of humanity’s Holocaust, an archipelago of death-factories…executions…and exterminations which surpassed anything…in…history.”1 —Davies “Germany…killed the prey (Poland)…Russia will seize that part of the carcass…Germany cannot use. It will play the…role of hyena to the German lion.”2 “I…order to kill without mercy men, women and children…
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Blood at Borodino
George DuneaChicago, Illinois, United States The year 2012 marks the 200th anniversary of Borodino, one of the bloodiest battles in the history of mankind. It pitted against each other two roughly matched adversaries, the armies of emperor Napoleon and Czar Alexander I, each boasting about 130,000 men and 600 guns. Having marched all the way…
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Gout changes the fate of nations
In the battle of the Nicopolis, Bajazet defeated a confederate army of a hundred thousand Christians, who had proudly boasted that if the sky should fall they could uphold it on their lances. The far greater part was slain or driven into the Danube. . . . In the pride of victory Bajazet threatened that…
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Medics in World War II
Selection from Citizen Soldiers by Stephen E. Ambrose “Bravest man I ever saw . . . he came running right through the machine gun fire and put a tourniquet on my arm,” recounted an infantry man hit by a bullet that ripped right through his right upper arm. The medic got hit by the concussion…
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Facing fire: Burns and visibility in the two World Wars
Gemma BowsherLondon, UK The two World Wars that occupied the first half of the twentieth century are exceptional events primarily because of their immense loss of life made possible by new technical “advances.” This paper, however, is preoccupied with those who were forced to endure life beyond war, the soldiers and civilians who returned to…
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I’ll never forget
Ella Veres New York, New York, United States Author’s note: The Romanian veteran in my story is traumatized by the suffering he witnessed during World War Two battles, but in Romania PTSD is not very well-known yet. Listen, dear lady, I have one more year and I’ll turn 90. I was 18 when I fought in the…