The Vietnam War hurt the Americans more than the 911 terrorist attacks, this lasted ten years, using 2 million U.S. troops, with advanced weapons and equipment, strong material support, strict command system, the People in the United States once thought that it was a war that would be won, but the United States had no choice but to retire, in the analysis of Vietnam in the war, naturally from the macro strategic command, weapons and equipment, geographical environment, logistics support, etc., there has been a comprehensive argument, But when I studied a medical book on the Vietnam War in the United States, I found some humble and overlooked effects, during the Vietnam War, from 1965 to 1972, the number of hospitalizations for skin diseases reached 7.4% of the total number of hospitalizations, and among all diseases, second only to malaria and hepatitis, which also had to make me wonder, why would the U.S. military be on the battlefield in Vietnam, and skin diseases that did not attract people's attention would lead to such a large attrition?
Today I will analyze the impact of skin diseases on the US military in the Vietnam War from a historical perspective. The large-scale involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War began in 1965, and in April 1965, the U.S. military entered the Vietnamese battlefield directly, and by the end of 1965, the number of U.S. troops in the South Vietnamese battlefield had reached 185,000, and since then, the U.S. military has been sent to the Vietnam battlefield, and by 1969, the U.S. army alone in the Vietnam battlefield had 366,000 people. Such a large army and combat soldiers must be supported by supporting medical facilities, but until the mass build-up in 1965, only one dermatologist in the US military entered the Vietnamese battlefield. It can be said that the United States did not pay attention to the impact of skin diseases on soldiers' combat in the early days of the Vietnam War. Why are skin diseases so unappreciated? The early consideration of the U.S. military was that compared to the physical damage caused by weapons of mass destruction, the impact of skin diseases on combat was indeed minimal. It is true that this consideration has precedents in the Period of World War II, and many countries have studied skin diseases, but in the end they have not attracted attention.
Since World War II, skin diseases have initially had an impact on combat
Skin diseases in the World War II period, in fact, is not counted as a disease to see, so in the Allies, did not cause much attention, mainly the incidence of skin diseases is not as obvious as other diseases, can not be digitized with specific statistical methods, and the incidence is changeable, the impact is small, so that even professional military doctors, may also make a wrong diagnosis of skin diseases. During this period, the study of skin diseases was not widely available and there was no feasible treatment, and many soldiers were harmed by skin diseases, but they were not cared for and effectively treated.
The impact of skin diseases on the U.S. military during World War II was not gradually noticed until 1944, when 0.55 percent of U.S. soldiers were hospitalized for skin diseases, but 1.03 percent of the Southwest Pacific Army, and the incidence of skin diseases among soldiers fighting on the front lines was significantly higher than that of rear support forces. It is disproportionate to spend a great deal of time on a few skin diseases. ”
From this passage, it can be seen that at that time, the entire American medical community did not pay enough attention to skin diseases, and they believed that skin diseases did not have much impact on the attrition of the war, which was also the attitude of the US military in the early days of the Vietnam War.
The first time the U.S. military began to study skin diseases, it was a unit that had nothing to do with medicine, the National Research Council, which carried out a special study of dermatodys, through which they proposed that scabies, drug allergies, purulent infections, contact allergies, and damp heat were important factors in the reduction of combat personnel, but this proposal did not attract the attention of the U.S. administration, and interns graduated from american medical schools were ignorant of the 10 skin diseases that accounted for more than 95% of the diseases.
Therefore, I think that there are three main reasons why skin diseases did not attract the attention of the US military during World War II.
The pathogenesis of the skin disease itself is not obvious, and the impact on the entire injured and sick person is small.
There is no precedent for dermatological research in countries around the world, and there is a blank in the impact of skin diseases on the attrition of soldiers.
The U.S. military, from doctors or administrators, has a negative attitude towards the impact of skin diseases on soldiers. Even if some institutions come to a conclusion, they ignore it and do not adopt it.
Learning from France's war in Vietnam, the United States conducted the first experiments on skin diseases, but with little success.
France invaded Vietnam as early as the 1840s, ruled in Vietnam for 100 years, the Vietnamese people and France's struggle has been uninterrupted, from 1945 to 1954, the French Minister of Health of the three armed services once had an important statement about skin diseases during the Vietnam war: "Skin diseases cause huge manpower consumption and cause great suffering. Fungal infections are the most common followed by staphylococcal infections, which are rare but there is no way to prevent them. ”
The United States conducted a military training in the Panamanian jungle in 1962, which was specifically aimed at soldiers to explore the survival factors needed in extreme humid, hot, and dirty environments. The United States named the operation "Swamp Lake 2", the experiment was attended by 150 soldiers before and after, and an important conclusion was drawn from field tests: body ringworm, candida, staphylococcal skin disease will increase in this environment, but the incidence of athlete's foot and foot red fistula has not changed significantly. From this experiment, the experiment also proved that the skin diseases commonly suffered by armed forces in tropical areas are bacterial, yeast and fungal infections.
It can be said that the US military's experiment in this Marsh Lake operation exercise provided a theoretical cause for the SKIN disease of the US military in the tropics, and if the doctors at that time could prescribe the right medicine, then it could greatly alleviate the pain of the soldiers suffering from skin diseases, but the US military high-level still did not pay enough attention to this matter.
Compared with the U.S. military, the probability of Vietnamese soldiers getting skin diseases is very low. So why do U.S. troops suffer from serious skin diseases in the Vietnamese region? I think there are two main reasons. First, the geographical environment makes the US military have obvious water and soil dissatisfaction in the Vietnamese region. The second is military decision-making mistakes, and the top level of the US military has advanced medical facilities but turns a blind eye to the harm of skin diseases.
First of all, from the geographical environment, the main range of activities of the US military south Vietnam is in the tropics, Vietnam territory is narrow, the south mainly has the fertile Mekong Delta, here is flat terrain, abundant rainfall, especially in the rainy season, most of this area will be flooded, this wet and hot environment, is the hotbed of the birth of skin diseases, the Vietnamese people have long been in this harsh environment, long-term struggle with the environment, so that they have learned the method of resisting these skin diseases from a young age, most of the US military is in temperate areas, Coming to this humid and humid environment will obviously produce the phenomenon of water and soil dissatisfaction.
From the perspective of military decision-making, although the US military has a large-scale regular army, advanced weapons and equipment, this huge military gap makes it impossible for Vietnam and the United States to adopt frontal resistance tactics, but to use guerrilla warfare in the form of small-scale harassment, which makes a large number of advanced weapons of the US military useless, in order to avoid vietnam's sneak attack, the US Army mainly implements anti-guerrilla tactics, hiding in the jungle, villages in the Vietnamese guerrilla forces to a large extent to contain the activities of the US military in Vietnam, which makes the US military that originally wanted to fight a quick decision. Forced into a tug-of-war that lasted a decade.
In order to maintain long-term combat, the strategy of the US army had to be forced to change, and first the main task of the army units became to search for and eliminate the enemy and disrupt their important supply lines. In order to maintain this long-term combat, they must establish a strong logistical support system. If counter-guerrilla warfare is fought for a long time, a sufficient number of troops is the main force. According to statistics, the activities of an infantryman in the United States on the battlefield require the support of 7 logistics personnel, and the search work of infantry in jungles, mountains and swamps often faces difficult living environments, in which they are also easily infected with skin diseases. Combat troops can easily contract pyoderma, fungal infections, and miliary disease, which do not produce much lethality, but the long-term pain will gradually afflict the soldier's body until they are no longer able to move and are forced to be put on stretchers.
As the impact of skin diseases on soldiers became more and more serious, the U.S. military began to pay attention to the dangers of skin diseases, and in July 1966, a doctor specializing in dermatology research was sent to work at the 17th Field Hospital in Saigon, Vietnam. At that time, the 17th Field Hospital had to accept 704-1334 dermatologists a month, an average of 950 dermatologists a month, and apparently this expert was also powerless, and by the summer of 1967, Washington decided to send five dermatologists to Vietnam. Gradually, several dermatologists were sent, but in general, the number of dermatologists sent to the Vietnamese battlefield was extremely limited. Until the gradual retirement in 1972, only 3 doctors were sent from 1970 to 1971, and throughout the Vietnam War, American soldiers suffered from skin diseases, but they never received enough attention and effective treatment.
From 1965 to 1972, there were 45,815 soldiers hospitalized for skin diseases among U.S. Army personnel, and the incidence of skin diseases among these hospitalized soldiers was as high as 18.9%-33.1%, the incidence of skin diseases accounted for 6.0%-9.3% of the total incidence of diseases, and the incidence of skin diseases of American soldiers on the Vietnam battlefield was 2 to 4 times that of the home army. However, the treatment received is extremely limited.
To sum up, skin diseases on the Battlefield in Vietnam have been so harmful to the US military that they have not been effectively treated, mainly because the US military top brass does not pay enough attention to it. Whether there is no precedent for skin diseases to reduce the number of people in the war, or the pathogenesis of skin diseases is complex. Claiming to have complete medical services, but not giving timely treatment to soldiers, this is the disregard for soldiers, soldiers as the main force of combat, with advanced weapons, complete equipment, but because of skin diseases can not be treated to lose combat effectiveness, this is the end of the line. Even if you wear gold armor and iron armor, you can't exert the combat ability of soldiers, and you are just a paper tiger.