TACTICAL COMBAT CASUALTY CARE: A Case Study of NCO Technical Professionalism
2009; The MIT Press; Volume: 89; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0026-4148
Autores Tópico(s)Military History and Strategy
Resumo[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Leader development is achieved through the lifelong synthesis of knowledge, skills, and experiences gained through institutional training and education, organizational training, operational experience, and self-development. --FM 6-22, Army Leadership, October 2006 (1) THE ARMY POSSESSES a corps of noncommissioned officers (NCOs) unparalleled among the world's militaries. Noncomissioned officers assigned to maneuver units deserve praise for their ability to adapt, with agility, to the roles of Soldier, leader, and trainer. Because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, NCOs have become master communicators, diplomats, strategists, and mediators; however, NCO growth and mastery in technical areas may be overlooked. In specialties such as communications, engineering, and computer science, NCOs have transformed the U.S. land force into an entity for which the word army seems simple and antiquated. Due to their dedication and ability to learn, the men and women who deploy in support of U.S. national security represent a team of multidimensional experts. A good example is combat casualty management. case fatality rates for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the lowest on record. Experts credit two items for this development: body armor and battlefield aid. Arguably, the more dynamic and ethereal component of this two-armed success is medical care. Unfortunately, reducing its actions to the term first depersonalizes heroic deeds performed by Soldiers within a frightening kinetic environment. medic, or Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) 91W, is one of many unsung heroes of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Using the combat medic as a case study, I will evaluate technical professionalism in the Army as a micro-revolution in military affairs. To describe the transformation of the combat medic during the decade of the new millennium, one must trace the roots of change to decades past. In the 1980s, careful analysis of the lessons of the Vietnam War set in motion a chain of events that led to the creation of the modern U.S. medic. During the 1990s, the lessons learned from Vietnam gradually became part of reformed medical training. When war broke out in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, the U.S. military found itself at a crossroads of medical doctrine. Without hesitation, the Army attacked the challenge and instituted a fundamentally new model of battlefield aid. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] medical NCO was influential in every chapter of this growth in medical professionalism. Medical NCOs provided proof of concept. Thereafter, the Army entrusted them with the vital task of teaching, training, and mentoring a new breed of combat medic. Army Medical Department Center and School in San Antonio, Texas, delegated the details of institutional change to the medical NCO. When the luxury of time dissipated with the onset of combat operations in 2001, the medical NCO provided a hip-pocket training bridge from old doctrine to innovative practice on the battlefield. stakes were high, and there was no guarantee of success. At each step, the Army placed more expectations upon the medical NCO. lower case fatality rates in Iraq and Afghanistan are a testament to the degree in which NCOs have met these expectations. achievement of this standard reflects a model of organizational leader development. NCOs continually supported, reinforced, and expanded good ideas with professional and technical competency. Understanding Soldier Combat Medical Needs Today's combat medic owes much of his success to the pioneering work of Dr. (Colonel) Ronald F. Bellamy. Using theoretical models and data on wounds and munitions effectiveness in Vietnam, Dr. Bellamy sought to understand how Soldiers died on the modern battlefield. (2) In his 1984 article, The Causes of Death in Conventional Land Warfare: Implications for Combat Casualty Care Research, Bellamy reached two important conclusions: first, that 90 percent of Soldiers killed in action suffered unsurvivable, catastrophic deaths while only 10 percent had injuries that were potentially survivable; and second, that 98 percent of patients who reached medical aid stations while still alive, ultimately survived. …
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