Category: War & Veterans
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Boots on the ground
Daly WalkerBoca Grande, Florida, United States Lt. Colonel Stone’s pulse pounded from the adrenaline rush of the resuscitation. The career Army medical officer was in the trauma bay of a surgical hospital he commanded in Afghanistan. A Navy SEAL had been shot in the chest and femoral artery. Stone had stemmed the bleeding in the…
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Cancer diagnosISIS
Clemens SchmittBerlin, Germany Sensing the first symptoms and signs of a potentially serious development, diagnosing a manifest malignant state, and determining the adequate treatment in order to eradicate the disease at its roots and ultimately eliminate “the last evil cell“—that is what cancer medicine is all about.1 It resembles in some ways the strategy required…
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A writer and a doctor: What a physician’s account of Auschwitz can teach us about the ethics of story-telling in medicine
Christine HennebergSan Francisco, California, United States In writing this work I am not aiming for any literary success. When I lived through these horrors, which were beyond all imagining, I was not a writer but a doctor. Today, in telling about them, I write not as a reporter but as a doctor.1 The opening “declaration”…
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Psychological effects of warfare on veterans and their families
Brittany LewisJacksonville, North Carolina, United States We hear the terms PTSD and TBI often. When civilians think of these diagnoses they all too often picture a man home broken from combat, possibly wearing a long trench coat and carrying a gun in his hand, who may just fly off at any given moment and kill…
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Lest we forget
Bradeigh GodfreySalt Lake City, Utah, United States “I’ve always hated the Germans,” he said to the medical student standing next to me. He was approaching 80 years old, too young to have served in World War II. Besides, he had a slight accent that the student had correctly identified as Dutch. It was unusual for…
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A memorable veteran
Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece It was nine o’clock on a Monday morning and this was my last outpatient clinic. By the end of the week I would be finishing my hospital duties and return home after several years of training in Britain. The first patient that day was a very pleasant seventy-five-year old man who walked…
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A battered soul rebels
Anonymous As a maturing poet I have recently noticed my work has themes of redemption. I surmise this stems from the fact that both my parents are mentally ill from the effects of war and I was an abused child. My mother suffers from PTSD/paranoia, my father suffers from PTSD/intermittent explosive disorder, and I was…
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The “Bangka Island Massacre”: Australian military nurses in the Pacific War
Angharad FletcherLondon and Hong Kong “Civilian nurses, bound on errands of mercy among the worst underworld dens, are never in danger from the most hardened criminals. But Australia’s nurses were not safe from the Japanese. No British citizen forgets the name of Nurse Edith Cavell. Australia now has her own Edith Cavells to remember.”1 Sometime…
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Military robotics, artificial intelligence, and genetic engineering: The future of modern warfare
Anene ChinemelumAnambra, Nigeria Military robots date back to World War II in the form of the German Goliath, an old mobile hardware used by Germans to track mines and tanks. Military robots were used for reconnaissance and for neutralizing explosive devices. Current robots are not merely used for surveillance and sniper detection but have been…