text: Chapter 1
  SECTION III — TACTICAL COMBAT CASUALTY CARE
  1-12. Tactical combat casualty care (TCCC) is divided into the three phases- care under fire, tactical field
  care, and tactical evacuation care. Tactical combat casualty care occurs during a combat mission and is the
  military counterpart to prehospital emergency medical treatment. Tactical combat casualty care in the
  military is most commonly provided by enlisted personnel and includes self-aid and buddy aid (first aid),
  combat lifesaver (enhanced first aid), and enlisted combat medics and critical care flight paramedics in the
  Army, corpsmen in the United States Navy (USN), United States Marine Corps, and United States Coast
  Guard, and both medics and pararescue men in the United States Air Force (USAF). Tactical combat casualty
  care focuses on the most likely threats, injuries, and conditions encountered in combat and on a strictly limited
  range of interventions directed at the most serious of these threats and conditions.
  CARE UNDER FIRE
  1-13. In the care under fire phase, combat medical personnel and their units are under effective hostile fire
  and are very limited in the care they can provide. In essence, only those lifesaving interventions that must
  be performed immediately are undertaken during this phase.
  TACTICAL FIELD CARE
  1-14. During the tactical field care phase, medical personnel and their patients are no longer under effective
  hostile fire and medical personnel can provide more extensive patient care. In this phase, interventions
  directed at other life-threatening conditions, as well as resuscitation and other measures to increase the
  comfort of the patient may be performed. Physicians and physician assistants at battalion aid stations or
  during tailgate medicine support also provide TCCC. During tactical field care, personnel must be prepared
  to transition back to care under fire, or to prepare the casualty for tactical evacuation, as the tactical situation
  dictates. Tailgate medical support refers to an economy of force device employed primarily to retain
  maximum mobility during movement halts or to avoid the time and effort required to set up a formal,
  operational treatment facility (for example, during rapid advance and retrograde operations). For
  more information on tactical field care see ATP 4-02.3.
  TACTICAL EVACUATION
  1-15. In the tactical evacuation phase, casualties are transported from the battlefield to medical treatment
  facilities (MTFs). Medical treatment facility refers to any facility established for the purpose of
  providing medical treatment. This includes battalion aid stations, Role 2 facilities, dispensaries, clinics,
  and hospitals. Evacuation can be by either medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) (dedicated platforms [ground
  or air] manned with dedicated medical providers) or casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) (ranging from
  nondedicated, but tasked, platforms [ground or air] augmented with medical equipment and providers to
  platforms of opportunity without medical equipment or providers).
  Note. The TCCC initiative originated with the Naval Special Warfare Command and later
  continued by the United States Special Operations Command. Special operations forces do not
  have a dedicated, designed, and equipped MEDEVAC capability. Therefore, they use nonmedical
  platforms augmented with medical personnel to perform the evacuation function. The
  conventional force doctrinal categories of MEDEVAC and CASEVAC as defined in Army
  doctrine on MEDEVAC are not changed, however, during this phase of TCCC both types of
  evacuation occur depending upon the availability of assets and the time window available to
  execute the evacuation process. Time is of the essence to remove the casualty as quickly as
  possible to where further treatment can be provided.