The drawdown of combat operations in Syria and a new peace agreement in Afghanistan compel consideration of how military medicine should function during this time of lower combat intensity. Coming home evokes a sense of relief in those who bear the burden of war. However, as highlighted in the lay press and medical literature, return to a period of relative peace also has the insidious effect of eroding the skills needed to manage the first casualties of the next war.1,2 We have coined this phenomenon the peacetime effect.