Frontlines and Lifelines: Collected Poems from an Army Doctor in Crisis and War

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 Timothy 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.