FOUR OAKS, N.C. - Imagine feeling your lower leg being manually sawed off below the knee without the aid of anesthesia to numb the sickening pain. If you can handle it, you survive through the shock. If you can't, you immediately die of extreme shock or worse, a slow, infectious death. Unfortunately, many of the 80,000 Soldiers who fought in the bloody Battle of Bentonville experienced this scenario simply because doctors did not have the personnel, supplies and technology to properly treat all wounded. Luckily for the Marines and Sailors who fight today, corpsmen and Navy doctors do.

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