Military Medicine Focused for Joint Warfighting

Military health service support is an important element of combat service support. The art of health service support, often referred to as military medicine, has a history almost as long as organized warfare. The roles and functions associated with the successful practice of health service support solidified in the early part of the twentieth century. From that base, extensive refinement has occurred. United States' military medical effectiveness during World War II set the standard against which military health service support has been compared for the past fifty years. Inherent to its success was a set of skills, knowledge, and attitudes to produce a clear focus that set priorities to define ways, means, and ends. During the decades of the Cold War, the focused health service support capability which had been fine tuned during World War II became lost in bureaucratic and political fog. The military medical departments gradually shifted focus from the roles, missions, and functions at which they had learned to be successful. Those skills were replaced by a new military medicine culture that adopted new roles in extensive dependent and retiree clinical health care. This redefined mission evolved to be the dominant focus of today's military medical system. The result has been a loss of the culture which enabled and created greatness in United States military medicine fifty years ago.