This work captures personal experience of the Army’s Surgeon General as a military doctor in crisis and war, spanning 30 years from Northern Ireland; through Kosovo to the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns; culminating in the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russo-Ukraine war. Poetry provides the ability to say what is otherwise difficult or unpalatable. Some of the poems are critical and challenging. Some are humorous, as dark humour is a well-recognised resilience tool of the soldier. All are observational—and all are grounded in the realities of crisis and conflict. It is likely you have read war poetry from the perspectives of the combat soldier: but this book is the alternative perspective of those who manage the consequences of war. The work exposes that saving lives in conflict, picking up the human pieces, takes a toll on the carers. Writing these poems has been a means for the author to sustain mental resilience and to cope with serial morally injurious events.

Major General Tim Hodgetts CB CBE is an Army doctor, culminating his forty-year career as Surgeon General to the UK Armed Forces; Master General of the Army Medical Services; elected senior medical adviser to NATO; and Honorary Surgeon to the King. As Defence Professor of Emergency Medicine, he led a revolution in combat casualty care during the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns to achieve unprecedented patient survival. An inventor, thought leader, educator and inspirational speaker he is a leading influencer of emergency, disaster and military medicine of his generation.