For injured troops, 'Continuity of care is not interrupted by pesky little things like moving the patients 10,000 miles'

The Washington Post has an extensive article on the medical treatment provided to servicemembers who have seriously wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq. The military has developed a very sophisticated operation to get the wounded out of those countries and back to the U.S.:

Five nights a week, evacuation flights leave the airfield here for Ramstein Air Base in southwestern Germany, where there's been a U.S. military air base since World War II. They are then taken to a giant hospital in nearby Landstuhl for a few more days of treatment before flying home across the Atlantic. Many soldiers are back in the United States within five or six days of being wounded.

This strategy was devised after the 1983 Beirut Marine barracks bombing, in which some of the wounded had to wait more than 12 hours to get surgery and aircrews did not have the expertise to care for them in transit. It works only if transport doesn't alter or diminish the care soldiers are getting.

"The flight is squeezed in between surgeries, not the other way around," said Col. Christian R. Benjamin, an Air Force physician and commander of the hospital in Bagram. "Continuity of care is not interrupted by pesky little things like moving the patients 10,000 miles."

For evacuations from Bagram, last summer was the busiest in eight years. The number of critical patients evacuated reached a new peak in July, when 100 were transported. But October proved even more dangerous. By the end of the month, 144 critical patients had been flown out of Afghanistan, up from 60 the previous October and 25 in October 2008.

More than 4,000 critical patients have been evacuated to Europe from Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. Fewer than 10 have died en route.

The article describes the treatment received by Sgt. Diego Solorzano, a.k.a. Sgt. Solo, who was seriously wounded in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, he didn't make it.

The medical treatment on the front lines is impressive. Unfortunately, our military has too much practice. And, the treatment back home hasn't always been as impressive, which the Washington Post exposed in February of 2007.