Baptism of Fire

Abstract

This chapter explicates the Army’s shortsightedness, emphasizing combat initiation experiences of the both original and replacement first echelon medics. Each baptism of fire exposed the critical gaps in training programs, forcing the medic into a continuing on-the-job training mode. Even medical officers, participants in highly organized training programs, had to rethink their strategies and goals once they entered the combat environment. More critically, enlisted men who served as first echelon medical soldiers had not, as a group, enjoyed an appropriate training regimen designed to ready them for the physical and emotional rigors of caring for the combat wounded. Yet while the Army had profoundly under-prepared them to deal with the ghastly reality of combat, aid men adapted extraordinarily to treat the war wounded.