The Army on Friday was holding an exercise involving shooting live pigs and treating the gunshot wounds in training it says is critical to saving soldiers' lives but which has sparked outcry from animal-rights activists. The training, held at Schofield Barracks for Iraq-bound troops, is being conducted under a U.S. Department of Agriculture license and the careful supervision of veterinarians and a military Animal Care and Use Committee, said Maj. Derrick Cheng, spokesman for the 25th Infantry Division. "It's to teach Army personnel how to manage critically injured patients within the first few hours of their injury," Cheng said of the medical trauma training. The soldiers are learning emergency lifesaving skills needed on the battlefield when there are no medics, doctors or facilities nearby, he said.
Will this save the lives of soldiers in combat? That should be the only question. If this is the best training technique and it has been proven to save lives then it is very hard to argue against. It is not an easy scenario to imagine but in this scenario if 1 soldier is saved for every pig who is shot then isn't the cost worth it? By the way the pig are under anesthesia and the medics are doing their best to save them just like they will be doing with our soldiers. Live patients just like in thee field. Now really what is more important the pig or the soldier?
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I am sending this as a regular citizen and in support of PETA. Please do not go through with the medical training that is proposed. How could the Army believe that shooting pigs and practicing on them would be okay, let alone ethical? There are other ways to teach your soldiers how to heal wounds, this is not the way. Please, find something else; even medical schools and researchers have found better and more humane methods. This drill is just deplorable and evil.
Please imagine YOURSELF, your spouse, child, or best friend, wounded, bleeding profusely/out, no medic(because he/she was killed in the initial attack), & no one has been trained in trauma medicine. Guess what? You'll be DEAD. Oh, did I mention there is only SAND for cover, possibly NO water, the wind is blowing 45 knots, & it is 115 degrees? As your life soaks into the sand, you'd give anything for a dead pig.
I think it is a cruel practice-end of story. I'm sure that it traumatizing for the soldier who is asked to shoot the pig, too. How horrible! The pig is in pain for weeks or months. It doesn't serve any purpose in the long run. Also, where do the pigs recover? In a pig hospital where they are given medication for pain? I doubt it. Who ever thought of this was very cold-hearted.
Actually a pig is not the dirtiest animal in the world. The things we are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan... Now those are some of the nastiest creatures on earth. The Lucky have a stopped up nose when downwind from one of them.
We could use those creatures instead of pigs.
Shoot, Fix, Repeat.
to R. Castaldini, Medical schools do still use pigs, in fact the University hospital I work for that trains Dr's etc... they actually have live baby pigglets brought in for practice/science experiments. You Idiot, and as the other blog said, we eat them, use them for practice as long as it takes. Save Our Military
Proud Army Wife
testing on animals is inconclusive since human anatomy is diferent, because they tested on animals they could very well be holding a bundle of misinformation that could backfire when trying to save the life of the soldier. secondly why don't we just shoot our politicians, arn't they pigs with the anatomy of a human?
