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| The Surgical Technologist | DECEMBER 2016 544 G E O - P O L I T I C S B E F O R E W W I I : A N U N S T A B L E T I M E The years preceding the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor (and other bases) represent a highly unstable time across the globe. The period between 1918 and 1936 saw the rise of destructive international leaders in both Europe and the Pacific and failure of the World War I peace treaties. Memories were still fresh of a devastating war that had just ended, which had ravaged much of continental Europe. The Japanese-Russian War (1904-1905) was still reverberating in the Pacific, as this was the first time an Asian nation had defeated one of the European powers since the dawn of European colonialism. War was brewing even though US citizens were strongly opposed to getting involved. By the 1930s, naked aggression and outright atrocities by recently aligned Germany, Italy and Japan created unbearable political tensions in Asia and Europe. The United States’ historic allies, France and Eng- land, were unable to remain neutral despite repeated capitu- lation to Germany and others’ incursions across Europe. In September 1939, they found themselves at war with Ger- many over the Germans invasion of Poland. When America declared war on Japan after its brutal attack on the US at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaii Islands and on the Philippines on December 7, 1941, the world was already embroiled in violence and turmoil. Within days, there were counter-declarations of war across the globe, and Americans entered into war for the second time in a generation. S N A P S H O T : T H E F I R S T S U R G I C A L T E C H N O L O G I S T S T h e M e d i c a l Department Enlist- e d Te c h n i c i a n s Schools from 1940 until the end of the war t rained more than 43,000 men and women as sur- gical “technicians.” MDETS around the country prepared the STs for their role in the ORs as well as the basics of being in military service. In 1942, an advanced program was established for the highest-skilled techs. They were sent for another three months of surgical training in a hospital setting, in a cur- riculum that looks a lot like today’s programs with class- room time and hospital hours where students logged a variety of sur- gical cases and time in the wards. The program was a huge success and was intended to supple- ment or replace nurses in the forward areas of battle and in the hospi- tal units. Al though there were thousands of women STs who were highly praised f o r q u i c k l y l e a r n - ing skills and excelling on the job, the Army relied heav- ily upon male STs near the front line. They could be sent alongside platoons to function as company aidmen when not in the operating room, and were responsible for carry- ing enormous amounts of heavy equipment. During WWII and to this day, STs represent an essential part of the fixed and mobile hospital systems in all the- atres of operation. Surgical technicians in training at Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco in 1943 A surgical technician is shown sterilizing instruments in a portable autoclave Images courtesy of US Army Office of Medical History The decades after World War I had produced sig- nificant advances in blood banking and the pres- ervation of plasma. Doctors were gaining a better understanding of how to use morphine and antibi- otics. Recognition that, historically, more soldiers died from disease than from battle, rapid improve- ment in vaccination programs and the discovery of antimalarial drugs were lifesaving advances, also. Yet, combat surgery had enormous hurdles still to overcome, and so the Surgeon General had decided that recruiting the best doctors in the US would be a priority in the war on casualties.