Million-dollar wound

In his World War II memoir With the Old Breed, Eugene Sledge wrote that during the Battle of Okinawa, the day after he tried to reassure a fellow United States Marine who believed he would soon die,[1]

Much to my joy I saw the friend with whom I'd had the conversation the night before. He wore a triumphant look of satisfaction, shook hands with me heartily, and grinned as a stretcher team carried him by with a bloody bandage on his foot. God or chance—depending on one’s faith— had spared his life and lifted his burden of further fear and terror in combat by awarding him a million-dollar wound. He had done his duty, and the war was over for him. He was in pain, but he was lucky. Many others hadn’t been as lucky the last couple of days.

A similar concept is the Blighty (a slang term for Britain or England) wound, a British reference from World War I.[2]

In the film adaptation of Forrest Gump, the titular character received a million dollar wound. He was shot in his backside during his service in the Vietnam War, which left him sidelined from combat for months (ultimately serving as the end of his combat service, but for unrelated reasons). It was a very fitting example of a million dollar wound: Shot in a fleshy region of the body that could sustain it, received no permanent or prolonged injury from it, and removed from combat for a lengthy period of time. Given his below-average intelligence, he took the expression "million dollar wound" seriously, and said that "the Army must keep that money, 'cause I still ain't seen a nickel of that million dollars".