[Curse and blessing of combat ophthalmology in the 20th and 21st centuries]

Combat injuries in the literature are dominated by reports on the rescue of life and body trauma treatment of casualties. In the 20th and 21st centuries, preservation of the eyes would be more and more an extremely important goal. In World War I and II and along with the trends in current warfare, automatic weapons and conventional munitions like shrapnel will continue to cause a significant percentage of all ocular trauma in combat. There are also laser weapons which have the potential to cause blinding eye injuries. In spite of the curse of war there are also blessings of combat ophthalmology like the invention of the intraocular lens after the Second World War, when the plexiglas of a broken cockpit canopy was found to be inert in penetrating eye injuries. A significant ly better eye protection was developed following terror attacks, such as terrorist blasts in the 21st century. Finally, every new generation of military ophthalmologists has had to learn on its own from earlier armed conflicts and some of this knowledge could be helpful for our patients in more peaceful times.