Vietnam 1968 -- 1969. A Battalion Surgeon's Journal

Doc Holley's book gives the reader a look inside the butcher shop of war.

It's not a pretty picture. In these pages you see how grunts live and die and why the combat medic is the most honored and respected member of the fraternity of the brotherhood of war. the doc was my battalion surgeon in that mad, bad war in Vietnam.

He was a draftee who wore a captain's railroad tracks and didn't give a tinker's damn for all the power and protocol of the system. he cared only for the warriors of the hardcore battalion. He was a rebel with a cause. It was his mission to keep the hardcore troopers fighting fit and try to keep them alive when a human hunter had done his damage. Doc Holley told me early in the game that I didn't know much about doctoring and field sanitation, and if I didn't "fuck around" with his medics, he'd keep my troops in fighting shape. He was as good as his word.

On the battlefield the doc was everywhere: on patrol with the troops, patching up the wounded in the center of a nasty minefield, and riding shotgun in my chopper. He was the combat surgeon of combat surgeons. Many hardcore troopers are alive today because of his skill, courage to get to the killing field, and strong leadership that made sure his combat medics were well trained and with their platoons, caring for their charges. In these pages, Holley brilliantly recaptures the battlefield: the waste, the horror, the futility, and the comradeship and love that are the magic glue that keeps warriors sane while wading through the swamps of insanity. Holley's book doesn't suffer from a foggy memory or the spin that old warriors put on their frequently told war stories. His data base is from the letters he wrote home.

So the story is 1969-fresh and has the feel and sound of the battlefield about it. I could smell the swamp stink of delta water and feel the mud cling to my legs and see the punji stakes, leech bites, and sweat-blackened fatigues of the file of troopers cautiously moving through the hell of the Mekong delta. it will make you cry, laugh, and rage with anger. It's a moving , gut-wrenching story that explodes like a hand grenade and holds the reader like a minefield. The doc was everywhere, so his story is not that of an individual platoon, company, or battalion leader. The reader sees the complete big picture. It not only tells the story of the combat medic at war but tells the grunt's story in simple and clear language. It also brought back the terrible casualties the powerful us war machine inflicted on the Vietnamese civilians caught up in the holocaust of war: the women and children blown in half by an ambush patrol who thought they'd snared the Viet cong, and how this horror affects the kids who triggered the ambush. This book will become a primer for future combat medics and field surgeons.

It will show them how to accomplish their mission of mercy and live through the horror of war. Since the Vietnam war ended, there has been a carefully managed campaign to rewrite the history.

Hack