The doctor who heads the trauma unit [at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany] wants to tell a happy story, too. He tells me that war is good for civilian medicine. I've read reports that make the same point: in peacetime, the cutting edge of civilian medicine is honed by civilian researchers in universities and teaching hospitals, but in times of war, military medicine surges ahead, developing new and more sophisticated techniques for treating problems rarely seen in civilian practice.