U.S. Combat Medicine and Military Morale

While a number of studies have argued for a relationship between military morale and military effectiveness, analyses of the sources of morale have overlooked the possible role of military medicine. We suggest that military medicine may be an important predictor of morale. We assess this claim via an observational survey of U.S. military veterans and a survey experiment of active-duty U.S. military personnel. We find a statistically significant relationship between confidence in military medicine on one hand and morale on the other, especially for respondents who have seen combat.