The picture here of Marine Lance Corporal Eric Frazier, a 20-year-old combat veteran of Iraq, lifts this page to another level. He is being fitted for the first of two high-tech artificial legs at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. It's a sad fact of life that wars accelerate advances in the care of traumatic injuries. Last year, in our first Military Medicine issue, we called this phenomenon "war's bloody silver lining." With the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan no less crimson today, we once again shine a spotlight on medical matters.
No one who hasn't experienced it can relate to the loss of one or more limbs. Most of us can only try to console and assist friends and family members so afflicted. Thankfully, the medical community—doctors, nurses, engineers, prosthetic specialists—can and are doing more for Lance Corporal Frazier and his comrades. As frequent contributor Art Pine reports, artificial limbs have taken on a futuristic quality barely imagined a few years ago. Today, service members who have lost legs receive artificial ones so sophisticated that they are arguing not just stay on active duty, but to return to the combat zone.
Mr. Pine does double duty this issue. In addition to "Military Prosthetics: The Next Generation," he contributes a second piece titled "Military Medicine's Best-Kept Secret," which shines a light on a little-known gem of an institution that goes by the world's worst acronym—USUHS. Forget what that stands for, we're talking about the joint services medical school nestled behind the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. They call it "West Point for doctors." We might argue with the school's choice of service academy with which to associate itself, but there's no question that USUHS has been the backbone of Military Medicine for nearly three decades.
In case you're curious, USUHS stands for Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Think about it; someone got paid for coming up with that name. These days, by the way, administrators at the school have taken to calling it USU. That stands for ... actually, I'm not sure.
On a less positive note, Commander Joseph F. Rappold, a veteran Navy surgeon who has deployed three times as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, questions the value of the highly-touted Forward Resuscitative Surgical System (FRSS) teams in Iraq. They were valuable when the troops were moving on Baghdad in 2003, he writes, but the current static quality of the Iraqi theater makes higher-level care both available and desirable. His piece is called "FRSS Teams in Iraq: A Good Idea Whose Times Has Passed."
Another senior Navy doctor who has served in Iraq, Captain Michael Vengrow, says the Marine Corps' slogan of "doing more with less" has worked against it in at least one instance. Captain Vengrow, in "Saving Limbs and Lives," says the Corps needs a dedicated Medevac helicopter unit for transporting wounded Marines.
Two articles in this issue deal with developments on the warfront. Tom Bowman, Pentagon correspondent for National Public Radio, has written a colorful and incisive profile of Army General David Petraeus, who is taking the reins as the top military commander in Iraq.
In addition, retired Army Colonel Norvell "Tex" DeAtkine, a seasoned Middle East specialist, provides a thoughtful Commentary on President Bush's 10 January speech to the nation outlining his revised strategy for Iraq ("Nothing New? Don't Be Too Sure").
This issue contains the winning essays in the Enlisted Essay Contest, sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton. First prize goes to Senior Chief Petty Officer James Murphy, who argues for continuation of the training and initiation process that traditionally precedes promotion to chief rather than replacing it with a new training academy, as some have proposed. His winning entry is called "We Don't Need Another Academy."
We have another first-prize winner in this issue, Jose Delgado, who takes top honors in the Naval Intelligence Essay Contest, jointly sponsored by Naval Intelligence Professionals, the Naval Intelligence Foundation, and the Naval Institute. In "To Go Jointly Where No One Has Gone Before," Mr. Delgado, an intelligence specialist, discusses the changing role of naval intelligence in the war on terrorism.
We welcome back an old friend, retired Marine Major General Fred Haynes, who cut his teeth in the Corps on the black sands of a tropical isle called Iwo Jima. General Haynes, who previously reviewed Clint Eastwood's Flags Of Our Fathers for us, returns with his thoughts on Eastwood's companion film, Letters from Iwo Jima.
Editor's Page
By Robert Timberg, Editor-in-Chief