Combat Medics and Corpsmen

The manifestation of trauma is as varied as the number of people who experience it. U.S. Army combat medics and Navy corpsmen are a group of individuals who have experienced a significant amount of exposure over the last 8 or 9 years of war. Because of the nature of their job and the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this population provides a rich opportunity to study the impact of repeated traumatic experiences and how these men and women cope or even thrive. The following briefly describes who medics are as a population, the apparent differences in how this population receives and manages internal and external stressors faced in their lifesaving duties during war, and the lessons to be learned from these men and women.

Combat ...