America’s Other Heroes

March 31, 2020

(The Atlantic) – They flew in on short notice. They left their homes all across America; rushed to Lackland Air Force Base, in Texas, and other military installations; and got to work. They are not elite commandos or rapid-response troops, or at least not the kind you might imagine serving in our military. They are the civilian medical personnel of the National Disaster Medical System and the officers of the U.S. Public Health Service—doctors, nurses, medical technicians. And they always respond, parachuting into hot spots of disease and suffering in the wake of every kind of human trauma imaginable.