For years, a doctor now accused of performing macabre procedures on the troops that he trained took steps to cloak his battlefield-medicine classes in secrecy. The doctor, John Henry Hagmann, often required that those who took or helped teach his courses sign non-disclosure agreements.
The agreements may have helped ensure that his most extreme training methods – including allegedly inducing shock among students – would remain confidential.
But some of the same unorthodox procedures that led the Virginia Board of Medicine to suspend Hagmann’s medical license earlier this year had raised concerns within military circles nearly a decade ago.
In 2005, for instance, the commander of U.S. Special Forces became so alarmed by what his aides observed during one of Hagmann’s training courses that the commander ordered all such private training halted, according to interviews and military documents reviewed by Reuters. In his order, General Bryan Brown wrote that aides witnessed “potentially hazardous physiological demonstrations” performed on U.S. troops.