Search - Battlefield Angels: Saving Lives Under Enemy Fire From Valley Forge to Afghanistan (General Military)

The author skips from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War to World War I - each of which is a short chapter. It would have been interesting to read more about the evolution of the military medical service in this long period as well as other periods or war from 1775 to 1919. Other sources exist, especially for the Civil War.

The author makes a big deal about the creation of an ambulances during the Civil War, but overlooks the problem that many ambulances were used by senior officers as transport due to the excellent spring system in ambulances. It took the creation of an ambulance/medical corps as a separate organization to overcome this and other problems. However, this superficial treatment is typical of the author's examination of the early period of American medical military history.

For whatever reason, the author concentrates on the period from World War II to the present. Just as interesting as the stories of individual medic and doctors (some of which are disjointed and confusing) are the author's examination of improvements in medical treatments.

One interesting part of the World War II story was the reaction of medical doctors to emergency surgical operations performed by corpsmen on submarines when M.D.s were not available. I'll let you read the book to see what that reaction was.