The first link in a wounded man's journey
The American aidman represents medical care brought to the soldier, rather than the soldier already carried to a hospital. In European-theater settings, medics were commonly identified by Red Cross markings and often went unarmed. Their immediate responsibility was the wounded around them.
The familiar word medic can hide a much larger process. Treatment near the point of injury was the beginning of evacuation through successive medical facilities, not a complete hospital service in one man's bag. This figure gives that first, exposed stage a place among the infantry he was there to help.
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