JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas –
A temporary exhibit focusing on the role of U.S. Army Medical Department during World War I in treating wounded soldiers on the battlefield and the lessons they learned from the war opens at 10 a.m. April 28 at the U.S. Army Medical Department, or AMEDD, Museum located at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston.
The exhibit, “Scientific War: Human Price,” will include 55 artifacts on display from the war and stories from Army medical personnel who served in the conflict. The opening of the exhibit will mark the 100th anniversary of the U.S. entry into World War I and run until November 2018, the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice between the U.S. and the Allies and Germany that ended the war.
The museum, located at the corner of Harry Wurzbach and Stanley Roads at JBSA-Fort Sam Houston, is free and open to both Department of Defense cardholders and the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Saturday.
Visitors who want to come to the museum but do not have DOD access to get into JBSA-Fort Sam Houston should refer to the JBSA website, http://www.jbsa.af.mil/library/visitorinformation.asp, for base entry requirements.
The museum will host a living history event May 1, marking the opening of the exhibit from 9 a.m. to noon and additional activities throughout the day. The living history event will include a group of volunteers dressed in WWI period Army medical uniforms.
The AMEDD Center for History and Heritage, which is located at the museum, is helping to put the exhibit together.
“Our exhibit is going to talk about Army medicine at the start of the war,” said Angelique Kelley, AMEDD Center of History and Heritage museum specialist, “and how when we went into the war we weren’t necessarily prepared for such a large scale encounter. And then from there it goes into how we adapted to that, how we overcame those struggles, all the new conditions the Army was facing and how we made a successful Army that could survive the war.”
Dr. Sanders Marble, senior historian at the AMEDD Center for History and Heritage and head exhibit curator, said the exhibit will cover how Army medical personnel treated and cared for wounded soldiers and how what they learned from World War I was used to improve care in later conflicts.
One of the innovations that came as a result of the war was to develop a bandage and metal tin case to keep it in so that it would not become contaminated on the battlefield, said Marble. The bandage and tin case, known as the Carlisle bandage tin, was developed after World War I at the Carlisle Barracks Army medical equipment laboratory in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Marble said WWI was the first conflict in which medical enlisted personnel, known as an aid man, were permitted to go to the battlefront to treat the wounded.
“Instead of waiting and having the doctor be the person that did everything, they pushed some enlisted guys forward into the trenches, which is the roots of the combat medic,” Marble said.
Other displays in the 20-by-40-foot exhibit include an interactive psychological IQ test the Army gave to recruits to determine if they would have a mental breakdown on the battlefield and the chain of evacuation that was set up for transporting a wounded soldier from the battlefield to the hospital back to the U.S.
“We will hit on the chain of evacuation, how immense it was,” said Christopher Goodrow, AMEDD Center of History and Heritage museum specialist. “It was a very long chain of evacuation with a lot of moving parts. We will cover that from the point of entry all the way to long term care in the U.S.”
Goodrow said the chain of evacuation display will include a trench line with a stretcher bearer and a makeshift field hospital. Multiple panels on the exhibit wall will cover the different modes of patient evacuation utilized in the war, including ambulances and trains that took them to hospitals and the ships that took them back to the U.S.
In addition, the exhibit will include information about the Army Ambulance Service and Army Nurse Corps and tell about their roles in caring for and treating wounded soldiers.
Additional artifacts in the exhibit include a gas mask with apparatus and a uniform of Capt. Douglas Venable, who served in the war and whose unit, the 36th Infantry Division, trained in Texas before being deployed.
Marble said the exhibit collection contains stories of medical personnel who served drawn from letters, diaries and memoirs and looks into the legacy of the 300,000 men and women who served in the Army Medical Department during the war, including the lasting tributes and memorials to those medical personnel who gave their lives in the conflict.
“The AMEDD soldiers cared about their fellow comrades,” he said. “Thousands of veterans contributed to the plaques honoring their own fallen comrades.”
Once it opens, “Scientific War: Human Price” will be located in the area of the museum for temporary exhibits, which is at the end of the museum gallery.
Opened in 1989, the AMEDD Museum covers the 200-plus history of the U.S. Army Medical Department on seven acres from its founding in 1775 to the present through various indoor and outdoor exhibits. Museum information is at http://ameddmuseum.amedd.army.mil/index.html. To contact the museum, call 221-6358.