Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: War and Veterans

  • Found and lost in Vietnam

    Lynn SadlerBurlington, North Carolina, United States War alters, shapes, and re-shapes far different ends even for members of the same family. Clarence Leon (“Boone”) McNeill (1947-1969) and Joseph Nelson Hargrove (1951-1975) are illustrative not only in that telling way but also salute the tenacity of Americans in honoring their veterans. Their names are inscribed on…

  • Lilac hideout

    Lidiia RiabovaCherkasy, Ukraine Klym was lying wounded, shell-shocked on the hot black soil. The reflection of a distant, cold sky and the silent copper sun mirrored in his wide open eyes. Only he had survived the battle. The watch on his wrist was glinting in the sun. Somehow it remained undamaged. It was caked with…

  • Neuroscientist refugees from Nazi Germany find haven in Illinois

    Lawrence ZeidmanChicago, Illinois, United States Introduction The purge of thousands of “non-Aryan” physicians, including many neuroscientists, began within the first few months of the Nazi takeover of Germany in January 1933. At that time, roughly 9,000 “non- Aryan” (full Jews, baptized Jews, part-Jews, and other minorities), and politically dissident doctors lived in Germany,1 comprising 15-17%…

  • The Siamese Expeditionary Force of World War I and the Spanish Flu

    Khwanchai PhusrisomStephen MartinMahasarakham, Thailand The Siamese military presence In July 1918, 1284 Siamese volunteers arrived in Marseilles by ship1.  Their air force personnel did not see action because their training had not been completed before the end of the war.  The ground troops (Fig 1) had been trained, but being too few to form an…

  • The imponderable ‘what-ifs’: Did the medical issues of three Confederate generals cause the South to lose the war?

    Kevin R. Loughlin  During the darkest days of World War II, Winston Churchill was credited as saying, “The imponderable ‘what- ifs’ accumulate”. Throughout history, imponderable what ifs have provoked the observer to consider how historical outcomes may have turned out differently. Such it is with the Civil War. It can be reasonably argued that the…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…