Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Date

6-2025

Abstract

This thesis examines the evolution of the U.S. military's patient movement system during World War I and World War II to evaluate how well it may perform under the conditions of future large-scale combat operations. It asks whether the United States can move, treat, and sustain wounded personnel at the scale and pace required to preserve combat power in a prolonged, high-intensity conflict. Using detailed case studies of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and the Battle of the Bulge, the analysis focuses on how transportation platforms, organizational structure, and standard operating procedures (SOPs) shaped patient movement under conditions of attrition, disruption, and operational shock. The study finds that effective patient movement is a strategic capability essential to force regeneration and battlefield endurance. It argues that systems built for efficiency in post-Cold War expeditionary operations may not withstand the demands of great power war. Assumptions about air superiority and rapid timelines for evacuation and treatment are unlikely to hold in contested environments. Drawing lessons from the layered, modular systems of the twentieth century, the thesis recommends greater investment in multimodal transport, flexible organizational structures, and SOPs that enable decentralized decision-making under degraded conditions. As great power competition intensifies and the U.S. military reorients toward the Indo-Pacific, the ability to move and treat the wounded will remain a decisive test of strategic readiness. This study contributes to military medical planning by showing that the structure and function of patient movement systems must evolve as operational environments grow more complex, distributed, and contested.

Comments

Thesis presented to the faculty of the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, Air University

Advised by J. Wesley Hutto, PhD

This work was sourced from Air University's digital repository, at https://aul.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01AUL_INST/n9hl54/alma996024470406836

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