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Usual procedure is to evacuate any man expected to need a bed for 15 days or more. But if the in-country count is high, Latham may decide to fly out some less severe cases to make room for a possible emergency. Every day or two, big Air Force hospital planes drop into Saigon and other airfields in South Viet Nam, pick up as many as 60 patients each, and fly them to Clark Field in the Philippines under the constant care of a doctor, nurses and corpsmen. "What we've done," says Colonel Neel, "is to bring management to the battlefield. It is no longer a matter of sending casualties to the rear and hoping there will be room for them. We make sure there is always room." And thanks to improvements in all sorts of equipment, surgical procedures and drugs, there is always better care.
*The nomenclature developed in an earlier age. Field hospitals are no longer in the field but in the rear areas (including Saigon) for headquarters personnel; evacuation hospitals receive men already evacuated from the field and treat them extensively.