I was the anticipated team leader at Minot, assigned to last “a little longer than the others” if nuclear conflict arose. My position was not glamorous. It served as a reminder that even in the field of medicine, some individuals were disposable. Years later, I was almost deployed to the First Gulf War, witnessing colleagues sent to Afghanistan, developmental pediatricians compelled to serve far from the children they were trained to assist. Some returned with serious injuries.

As a child, I recognized that death was my fiercest adversary, one I promised to challenge equipped with every bit of medical knowledge I could collect. Yet, I took an oath to God to protect the Constitution of the United States with my life. That contradiction (fighting death while pledging my own life) followed me throughout my career and into “retirement.”

That promise led me to numerous premature births, each a struggle between vulnerability and hope. I found myself at the front lines, the first to respond to every code, praying for the ability to rescue each child. But sometimes, God’s response was “No.” In those instances, I bore the burden of a life too short. The base chaplain showed me to baptize with glucose water, a ritual that turned into my prayer, my offering of solace for children who returned to Paradise far too early.

My other duty as a medical officer was chief of the expectant team: for soldiers who had no chance of survival. I would dispense morphine to alleviate pain; the chaplain would perform last rites to soothe the spirit. Thank God I never had to fulfill that role, narrowly missing the First Gulf War by just 32 days. Nevertheless, each premature birth, each code, served as a reminder of life’s delicacy and the inevitability of death.

From the nursery to the airstrip, the paradox remained. Had Ronald Reagan initiated a conventional war against the Soviets, I would have been stationed at an aid station merely 100 yards from the runway. Instead of applying four years of medical training, I would have depended upon a two-week C-4 Combat Casualty Care Course: executing tracheostomies, applying tourniquets, packing wounds, an overprepared medic rather than a pediatrician. I carried a gas mask with glasses inserts ready for chemical or nerve agent assaults. Drop the helmet, don the mask, suit up, and resume work.

A colleague returned from Afghanistan with a broken leg. A developmental pediatrician trained at great expense, dispatched as expendable while internists and family practitioners remained safely in their offices. The Army embraced the Marine Corps motto “every man a rifleman,” as if we were interchangeable combatants. After a long recovery, she returned home, keeping a K-Bar knife in her boot (against regulations) not for battle, but to protect herself from any rapist who might threaten her.

We ultimately utilized that knife for a benign purpose: unscrewing battery compartments in ADOS-2 toys to replace old batteries. Not quite swords into plowshares, but knives into screwdrivers for children’s evaluations. You won’t see that parable in the Bible.

Later, in Phoenix, even the building itself turned hostile. My colleague’s “sick building” grievances were dismissed as hypochondria, but they resulted in real medical emergencies for me. Typing reports while receiving albuterol nebulizations left my hands shaking uncontrollably. I found myself in the emergency room twice. Yet, the final blow was not the building or the asthma; it was being dismissed for treating too many Hispanic children. Equity was viewed as insubordination.

I signed a blank check to the Constitution, payable with my very life. That oath was not merely symbolic; it was enacted in every deployment order, every assumption that developmental pediatricians could be seen as disposable. My colleagues bore scars from Afghanistan, and I carried the recollection of being labeled “expectant” at Minot, the one intended to survive long enough to witness. Even our survival instruments, like a K-Bar knife hidden in a boot, were recontextualized for children’s assessments, not warfare.

What we offered was not disposable. It was service, sacrifice, and dignity. If the nation can acknowledge surgeons, it must also recognize the pediatricians who stood prepared to aid children even in combat zones. Our blank checks were cashed in manners that ethics should never permit. It is time to confront that reality.

Ronald L. Lindsay is a retired developmental-behavioral pediatrician whose career encompassed military service, academic leadership, and public health reform. His professional journey, detailed on LinkedIn, reflects a lifelong dedication to progressing neurodevelopmental science and equitable care systems.

Dr. Lindsay’s research has been published in prominent journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, The American Journal of Psychiatry, Archives of General Psychiatry, The Journal of Child and Ad