"Million-dollar wound" (

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances i ...

) or "Blighty wound" (

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...

) is military slang for a type of wound received in combat which is serious enough to get the soldier sent away from the fighting, but neither fatal nor permanently crippling.

Description

In his World War II memoir ''

With the Old Breed ''With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa'' is a World War II memoir by United States Marine Eugene Sledge, first published in 1981. The memoir is based on notes Sledge kept tucked away in a pocket-sized Bible he carried with him during battl ...

'', Eugene Sledge wrote that during the Battle of Okinawa, the day after he tried to reassure a fellow

United States Marine The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

who believed he would soon die, A similar concept is the

Blighty "Blighty" is a British English slang term for Great Britain, or often specifically England.

(a slang term for Britain or England) wound, a British reference from

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

In popular culture

In the film adaptation of Forrest Gump, the titular character receives a gunshot to his backside during his service in the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

, which leaves him sidelined from combat for months (ultimately serving as the end of his combat service, but for unrelated reasons). Due to Gump's below-average intelligence, he takes the expression "million dollar wound" literally, saying: ''"the Army must keep that money, 'cause I still ain't seen a nickel of that million dollars"''.

References

{{Reflist Injuries Military slang and jargon Military humor War casualties