Army medics receive intense training

[JoFerret]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4705661,00.html

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) - As the insurgents in Iraq step up their attacks, the Army has increased the intensity of its training of battlefield medics. That has meant moving the training from classrooms to more realistic settings and teaching medics to keep fighting the enemy - even if it means sometimes delaying treatment of the wounded.

``One medic on his weapon returning fire can make the difference between the enemy staying and continuing to fire on us, or saying `Whoa, I got to go,''' said Capt. Brad Tibbetts, the officer in charge of the Alfred V. Rascon School of Combat Medicine at Fort Campbell. ``That's one thing we teach them - when to delay and when you can't.''

This year, about 500 medics and others who work in small, isolated units will undergo training at the school. They attend the class partly to refresh skills they acquired during a 16-week course at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, where all new Army medics take civilian emergency medical technician classes and study battlefield techniques.

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[Malva Zebrina]

1. well, it is certainly good for our soldiers

but when we bomb the hospitals where the Iraqi innocents are to go to have their legs cut off to save their lives, or the faces of babies and children repaired, and when there is no where for them to go because we bombed out the hospitals, I wonder what to think

[Rose Siding]

2. If medics weren't high value targets already,

they are now. Does this change their mission? Was it always like this?

[cornermouse]

3. Why bother to have medics?

It seems to me that if they're supposed to keep fighting even if it "sometimes" delays treatment of the wounded, it is not unreasonable to assume that a percentage of our kids, whose lives could have been saved with treatment, are going to die. It would appear that there is no reason to have medics because clearly they're going to be fighting rather than saving lives on the battlefield.

Is this a Rumsfeld idea?