{"id":96169,"date":"2026-08-21T20:05:53","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T20:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/uncategorized\/2026\/08\/21\/every-combat-medic-is-trained-for-the-wound-we-should-train-them-for-what-comes-next\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T20:13:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T20:13:58","slug":"every-combat-medic-is-trained-for-the-wound-we-should-train-them-for-what-comes-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/opinion\/2026\/08\/21\/every-combat-medic-is-trained-for-the-wound-we-should-train-them-for-what-comes-next\/","title":{"rendered":"Every combat medic is trained for the wound. We should train them for what comes next."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Every medic gets asked the same question. It usually comes when working \u2014 hands busy, casualty on the ground, the situation still unsettled. The soldier looks up and asks, \u201cAm I going to be okay?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the military trains medics relentlessly to treat the wound, we do not train them to handle the question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have spent years on both sides of that moment. I am a 68W combat medic instructor and a Tactical Combat Casualty Care instructor with the West Virginia Army National Guard, and I am also an endorsed chaplain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This role encompasses teaching soldiers how to control hemorrhage and manage an airway to sitting with them months later, when the physical injury has healed, though something else has not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Army should close the distance between those two conversations by building trauma-informed care into how we train medics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I expect the first objection, because I\u2019ve made it myself. There is no time for feelings under fire. A medic has minutes, sometimes seconds, and every one of them belongs to the casualty needing life-saving treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That objection misunderstands what trauma-informed care is. It should not be viewed as a separate task competing for time on the timeline. Instead, it is intertwined in the manner in which a medic performs the tasks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Telling a casualty what you are about to do before you do it costs three seconds and keeps the individual from experiencing treatment as one more thing being done without warning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keeping a level voice and clear instructions is not bedside manner, but a technique that lowers physiological arousal in a patient who is already flooded. These should not be viewed as soft skills bolted onto medicine, but medicine itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason this matters is simple: soldiers are people first. They come to us carrying whatever burdens were there before the uniform \u2014 childhood adversity, losses, things never processed or disclosed. The injury a medic is treating, therefore, may not be that soldier\u2019s first trauma. A medic who understands that will read the situation and respond differently than one taught to see only the wound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this approach, there are three key things every medic should be trained to recognize: <\/p>\n\n\n\n