No matter where you stand politically, the reality of death and injury from war is a certainty. During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States military used innovative, advanced techniques for medical transportation and wound treatment that ultimately flow into the nation's hospital emergency departments.

This trend of introducing war-born knowledge of life-saving techniques began during the Revolutionary War when George Washington ordered the first mass inoculation against smallpox for his army collected at Valley Forge. Here are a few other advances born out of war:

  • The New York City ambulance service began after the Civil War and is patterned on how the army used carriages to move wounded soldiers from the battlefield to military hospitals.
  • The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was born from the work done by military doctors investigating the causes and prevention of yellow fever.
  • World War I saw the first broad use and acceptance of blood transfusions.
  • World War II saw the introduction of cheap, mass-produced penicillin by military and civilian researchers
  • The Korean War saw the first use of helicopters to evacuate wounded and ill soldiers. During Vietnam, this practice continued and now is widely used in civilian life.

Iraq and Afghanistan contributions to emergency care

In our nation's most recent wars, USA Today reports that doctors in Balad, Iraq, used a costly drug labeled only for use by hemophiliacs to stop massive bleeding in military members severely wounded by roadside bombs.

Civilian emergency care expert Thomas Hill also reports that a bandage called HemCon began showing up in hospital EDs soon after being developed on battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. Doctors discovered with the help of government research that an extract from shrimp cells created a tight bond that nearly stopped bleeding immediately.

Jonathan Woodson, M.D., Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, recently wrote about using battlefield breakthroughs to help civilians. Woodson discusses recent military advances in prosthetics, including arms and legs that victims' brains control. He also discusses how the military developed the techniques for successful face transplants.

Woodson also writes about the military's never-ending help to civilian health by providing:

  • Development of robotic exoskeletons
  • Robotic surgery
  • Emergency department use of spray-on skin for burn victims
  • New techniques for treating traumatic brain disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Most of the emergency medical response doctrine in practice in the United States today evolved from medical experiences in the jungles of Southeast Asia in the late 1960s," said Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, M.D., surgeon general of the U.S. Army.

During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, emergency medical services developed by the military continue to find their way into everyday civilian care. Specifically these improvements include:

  • Bleeding control
  • New massive transfusion protocols
  • "Damage control" surgery
  • Neurocritical care
  • Treatment of badly-damaged limbs

Wars are deadly and cost amazing amounts of money and human life. In Iraq and Afghanistan, however, military contributions to civilian medicine — while not worth the lives and injuries — are huge. It is unfortunate that it takes wars to solve these civilian problems.