Memorial Day – Appendix

Some might be wondering how I wrote an entire memorial day blog without a mention of soldiers, perhaps accusing me of missing the mark or being unpatriotic.

I know we all occasionally forget about or take for granted those in the armed services who make the ultimate sacrifice to provide us the freedoms we hold  so dear, but it also doesn’t take much to jog our memories  — hopefully.

Let me point out another way our fallen soldiers continue after they die to benefit us civilians.

War leads to advances in trauma care. Historically this includes everything from the invention of the IO to the resurgence of tourniquets. This year the 7th edition of Pre-hospital Trauma Life Support is coming out. A lot of the changes in those care guidelines will be fueled by the research coming out of the Middle East.

For some the shear amount of death in a war is beyond comprehension. But the advantage of collecting all that data is creating a scatter plot so to see what’s actually killing our soldiers, then we can fix it, and then we can apply that to the private sector.

Please don’t think I’m heartless because I’m looking at the benefit of collecting data. I know that when your family is touched by tragedy all that matters to you is that single data point – a human being with a family, friend, hobbies, loves, interests, and stories. I hope I made that clear in my last post about body donors.

Please, just recognise and remember, that after a solider makes the ultimate sacrifice (even if you object to the war) that the data collected from their death will benefit other soldiers, keeping them safe, and will eventually benefit us – keeping us safe at home just like they were fighting to when they were alive.