Army Doctors were non-combatants in the 1880s
They did not participate in combat, let alone killing.
According to British Army medical regulations, military doctors serving with troops were primarily responsible for examining and treating sick soldiers, officers, and their families. They conducted routine weekly health inspections, managed medical supplies under lock and key, filed detailed sick reports, and inspected prisoners before court-martial proceedings.
Their duties were largely administrative and clinical in nature, and their attendance at rifle ranges or target practice was explicitly stated as not required under ordinary circumstances.
They weren't 'soldiers' or 'veterans'.
You can find memoirs of them from the 2nd Afghanistan War on archive.org, which further corroborate this.
Watson's career as an army doctor lasted only about a year in total, and he retired at around the age of 25.
And the good doctor is NOT a BAMF/badass as well 🙃
He is just a curious, gentle, romantic, sensitive, emotional, adventurous, handsome, and soft-hearted intellectual who happens to have a year of military medical experience which gives him the knowledge of how to act calmly to defend himself and people he cares in a conflict. 🙃
Holmes's combat ability (and muscular strength) is much superior to Watson's, and in the Canon it is primarily Holmes who does the fighting. Of course, Watson still possesses agile reflexes and quick reactions, just within the range of an ordinary person.
Holmes himself is an action hero; Watson is not. In this regard, Watson remains a supporting sidekick and is generally not involved in the fighting unless the attacker is out to kill (but even then, he tends to break up the fight together with others).
Watson does carry his revolver ('a short, handy, but very serviceable little weapon') for self-defense in perilous cases, but most of the time it goes unused, or he only draws it after Holmes has already taken the opponent down in melee combat, keeping it trained on that ruffian to prevent any sudden moves.
I just don't see the need to associate combat with Watson, particularly when it's no longer firmly associated with Holmes himself, while anyone familiar with the Canon knows that in most cases, it is Holmes who does the fighting and wins.
Holmes: 'And here it is that I miss my Watson. By cunning questions and ejaculations of wonder he could elevate my simple art, which is but systematized common sense, into a prodigy. When I tell my own story I have no such aid.'
Holmes: 'Take your breakfast, Watson, and we will go out together and see what we can do. I feel as if I shall need your company and your moral support today.'
Holmes: 'If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive.'
Holmes: 'With your natural advantages, Watson, every lady is your helper and accomplice. I can picture you whispering soft nothings with the young lady at the Blue Anchor, and receiving hard somethings in exchange.'
Watson essentially is a writer/bard, who transforms rigorous criminal investigation into dramatic legend. Even his errors of reasoning retain a remarkable power of stimulating genius. As a conductor of light, he not only catalyzes Holmes's brilliance but carries it outward to the reader.
Watson's truest gift is the intuition for the pivotal moment, the insight of human minds, and above all, the storyteller's art of shaping Holmes into an irresistible hero and conjuring a series of tales as captivating as they are thought-provoking.
Although Holmes was sometimes dissatisfied with Watson's way of writing:
“The Haven is the name of Mr. Josiah Amberley's house,” I explained. “I think it would interest you, Holmes. It is like some penurious patrician who has sunk into the company of his inferiors. You know that particular quarter, the monotonous brick streets, the weary suburban highways. Right in the middle of them, a little island of ancient culture and comfort, lies this old home, surrounded by a high sun-baked wall mottled with lichens and topped with moss, the sort of wall—”
“Cut out the poetry, Watson,” said Holmes, severely. “I note that it was a high brick wall.”
“I glanced over it,” said he. “Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.”
“It is pleasant to me to observe, Watson, that you have so far grasped this truth that in these little records of our cases which you have been good enough to draw up, and, I am bound to say, occasionally to embellish, you have given prominence not so much to the many causes célèbres and sensational trials in which I have figured but rather to those incidents which may have been trivial in themselves, but which have given room for those faculties of deduction and of logical synthesis which I have made my special province.……you have erred perhaps in attempting to put colour and life into each of your statements instead of confining yourself to the task of placing upon record that severe reasoning from cause to effect which is really the only notable feature about the thing.……You have degraded what should have been a course of lectures into a series of tales.”
Comparing the two accounts penned by Holmes himself, the one rendered in the third person, and the stories told through Watson's voice, one cannot help but suspect that Watson had polished Holmes's dialogue to lend the great detective an air of greater erudition and rhetorical elegance.
On occasion, Watson concedes as much himself: 'Then he told the story, which I would repeat in this way. His hard, dry statement needs some little editing to soften it into the terms of real life.'
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