"We'll Shoot The Wounded"

Virtually every time any discussion starts about the need to learn medical care, and start planning for both acute and long-term care and management of people with traumatic injuries, some self-appointed Spokesman For the Jackassical Hordes steps right up, both feet firmly in their mouth, head lodged securely in their ass, with the cheerful support of their fellow-idiots, and opines forthrightly,

"We'll just shoot the wounded!"

No, General Fuckstick, you won't, and here, for the last damned time, is why you won't:

1) Clearly you've never been in combat, or likely, ever in the military. Probably not ever been in so much as an intense paintball fight, for that matter. Tale after article after book after interview, going back to the oldest survivors of the oldest wars, notes without apology that men don't fight for countries, ideas, uniforms, flags, or mom and apple pie. That may be why they join, but it isn't why they fight.
Men fight for each other. The guys on their left and right.
And the minute you think you're going to draw down, and shoot them to save your own asses, those same guys will not only end you, they'll cut you up in little pieces and feed your entrails to hogs and ants while you're still alive and watching it happen, because that's how combat buddies roll.
If you think that some major disaster or SHTF catastrophe will undo 10,000 years of human behavior overnight, take along some salt, so the pigs can endure the taste of your worthless guts, because you're going to be a meal for them, as sure as apple trees make apples.

2) The minute you manage to shoot so much as one wounded man, you've put everyone else on notice that you're a greater problem to their ultimate survival than the enemy, and they'll frag your ass, or shoot you in the back of the head, to ensure you don't get a second chance to shoot them. And you've gotta sleep some time, and probably have fewer friends in the tribe than the guy you shot, especially since you shot him.

3) The wounded have weapons too, so unless they're unconscious, and literally disarmed, they'll cheerfully blow your ignorant ass away if you try. So go ahead stud, you and your lazy cowardly ass go take on that fierce little bloody shit with a .45 or a grenade, and tell him it's in his best interest to let you sacrifice him. Let us know how that works out for you. The pigs are putting on their bibs while you think it over.

4) Nobody sacrificed the wounded before. Not in the current festivities, nor at Khe Sanh, the frozen Chosin, nor Bastogne, in the trenches at the Somme, or Antietam's bloody creek, nor Valley Forge, Thermopylae, or likely anytime since Thag and Og took on those Neanderthals over the hill. Despite the obvious lack of much, if any, medical care then, decades to centuries before anesthesia and successful surgery, or prospects of gaining same, exactly like you'll face after TSHTF. So if you claim that's your only option anytime going forward, or because the enemy might eat you if you stop to care for others, you're a cowardly sonofabitch, and everyone who's ever cracked a history book in their lives will know it. That will include the rest of your nominal little tribe. Feel free to illustrate for the class from historical records, the number of cowards who command anyone warlike for more than about the time it takes, once again, to feed them to pigs.

5) People have survived traumatic amputations going back as long as long pointy spears and heavy swords have been used in melee combat. Just because the sight of other people's blood exposes your terminal stupid, and causes a yellow streak to spread a foot wide up your back, isn't sufficient reason to out of hand decide that someone else's wounds are either non-survivable for them, or a threat to the survival of your happy band of imaginary cutthroats. People injured too severely to live will obligingly die, and without any additional help from you, in short order. At that point, and only at that point, you are cleared to go through their pockets, split their gear, and put them in a hole. Jump the gun, and you'll create nothing but insurmountable problems for yourselves going forward, ranging from well-deserved guilt over murder, to the anger of their friends, the fury of their next-of-kin, and the hatred of your and any other group, once any semblance of civilization begins to recongeal, as it inevitably will. If they don't have any pigs handy, they'll probably find a short rope and a tall gibbet for you. And then go looking for some pigs to feed your leftovers to afterwards. No point in wasting a banquet.

6) Something as simple as tetanus, right now, will kill you deader than canned tuna. So, five minutes after there are no more vaccinations, are you going to start capping everyone with a scratch, a blister, or a bite from anything from mosquitoes to grizzly bears??? REALLY??? And if you're not that stupid over that, the only excuse for using it for traumatic injury, or the likely sequellae of same, comes back to you being too afraid, too uneducated, too lazy, too unprepared, or simply a sociopath with a death wish. Tell me again why we need you in the herd when things get sporty. Your medical preparedness, IMHO, - or utter lack thereof - is a predictor of your ultimate value to any society, down to the squad level.

7) You have the time and means right effing NOW to start addressing the deficits of your woefully inadequate medical knowledge, utter lack of appropriate skills, and dearth of supplies. (The absolute lack of humanity or character is something that should have been attended to by your mommy and daddy.) We know that rifles and ammo are sexier to you than bandages and diapers, but laziness and stupidity are curable. If you have one extra rifle, but no serious trauma supplies or training to use them, get "World's Biggest Asshole" tattooed on your forehead, to let the rest of us know you on sight, OK? Because that's what you are if you've made no provision for everything up to and including amputation of limbs in your medical plans, since that's been a risk since before Hammurabi's time to every man worried about the consequences of a fight. And given the cornucopia of modern options, including knowledge of germ theory, access to antibiotics, and the entire internet of medical supplies yours for the cost of mouse clicks and a few moments if only you'd stop excusing your monstrous sociopathy and stupidity by mouthing such idiotic juvenile sophistries as "We'll just shoot the wounded, because we hate them, we're scared, we're too lazy, too stupid, too evil, and we want to be fed to pigs alive", there isn't any other tenable excuse for not preparing for things while you have the time and opportunity, that hasn't already been laid out bare in this essay.

If, after all that, you're still too cowardly, lazy, stupid, and evil to do anything to make reasonable medical preparations, do the entire known universe a favor, and simply STFU, because all you're doing is letting the rest of us create mental lists of whom to select to burn shit barrels, field-test suspect mushrooms, and clear minefields barefoot, come the day, while generally pissing off the adults in the metaphorical room.

Otherwise, man the fuck up, act accordingly, and get your medical preparations (and your ass, once you've pulled your head out of it) into gear.

There's plenty of time to care for the wounded. What there isn't, is time to waste on mollycoddling the douchebags who'd skip that step. Or think they ever could. If you're such a selfish asshole as to think people will care for you out of anything more than your paltry tiny IFAK of medical supplies, ponder the future where they'll all justifiably say, "Sorry dude, all you brought for yourself was band-aids, so once those run out, we have nothing more we'll expend on your care." And maybe, at least out of sheer self-interest, gear up.

Or carry one bullet in the bottom of your IFAK, make it easy on everyone else to the very last, and shoot the only wounded man you're ever justified in shooting. You'll save a lot of suffering, both yours, and everyone else's, I can promise you.You could even save time, and do it right now.

Many await your decision.