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liralen's review against another edition
2.0
For whatever reason, I have an interest in military-medical memoirs—I'm not sure why, except perhaps that you get a different view from them than you do from more general military memoirs. This had some major proofreading problems (it gets a partial pass for that because the copy I read was an ARC, picked up at a secondhand shop; the pass is only partial because, in my experience, when such problems are that extensive pre-proofing, a lot of problems remain post-proofing), and the writing was...not great, as you might expect from a non-trained writer.
But setting that aside, this feels like a tremendously important viewpoint. Of all the medical memoirs I've read that have taken place in war zones, this is the only one written by somebody who was both a) in the army and b) not highly trained outside the army. That is, he wasn't a doctor, wasn't a surgeon, wasn't a nurse volunteering with MSF; he enlisted and was trained by the army as a medic, which is a very different viewpoint. Take [b:Rule Number Two|1915341|Rule Number Two Lessons I Learned in a Combat Hospital|Heidi Squier Kraft|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344265875s/1915341.jpg|1917367]: as an psychologist in the army, Kraft was an officer and subject to less...scrutiny? Indignity? And, in any case, when she decided that she wanted to continue to work with the army but no longer be up for deployment (i.e., work only stateside), that was a choice she could make. It's not something an average enlisted soldier can decide.
All of my [five] brothers and one sister [of two] ended up joining the Military, but different branches... So, when I turned seventeen the question never seemed to be if I would join the military or go to college. It was only, which branch of the military will it be? (61)
So he brings to this a different perspective than you might get otherwise, and a certain bluntness:
When I first thought about joining the military I took [a vocational aptitude test]. I got a great score and the Army told me I could have practically any job I wanted. I told the recruiter that I'd take whichever job had the highest bonus and the biggest kicker for school. He said an OR medic gets an eight thousand dollar bonus and a monthly GI bill kicker (for college) of three hundred and fifty dollars a month. He did explain what an OR medic actually does, but at the age of seventeen I was too busy daydreaming all of the magical things I could do with eight thousand dollars. (15)
Working on the Iraqi relaxes me a little bit. I know I'm doing my best to try to save him, but I also know that, truthfully, if he dies it won't be as big a deal as if an American dies. If that happened on my table everyone would read about it back in the States and his name would be in a wall, forever engraving my inability not [sic] to save his life. But if an Iraq [sic] dies, I know that most likely he will be given a paupers [sic] funeral and back in the States his name won't appear except as a statistic. (31)
I don't mean to suggest that Anthony's depiction of the situation is without any complexity—among other things, he is quick to note both that both Americans and Iraqis suffer from war in Iraq—but rather that he's coming at it from a different angle than, say, [b:Chris Coppola|6952515|Coppola A Pediatric Surgeon in Iraq|Chris Coppola|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328774894s/6952515.jpg|7187231]. Did my fingers itch with desire to fix the damn proofreading already? Yes.* Did I sometimes sigh over the amount of judgement? Yes. But there's still something to be learned here.
*Or possibly they itched from eczema. Take your pick.
But setting that aside, this feels like a tremendously important viewpoint. Of all the medical memoirs I've read that have taken place in war zones, this is the only one written by somebody who was both a) in the army and b) not highly trained outside the army. That is, he wasn't a doctor, wasn't a surgeon, wasn't a nurse volunteering with MSF; he enlisted and was trained by the army as a medic, which is a very different viewpoint. Take [b:Rule Number Two|1915341|Rule Number Two Lessons I Learned in a Combat Hospital|Heidi Squier Kraft|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344265875s/1915341.jpg|1917367]: as an psychologist in the army, Kraft was an officer and subject to less...scrutiny? Indignity? And, in any case, when she decided that she wanted to continue to work with the army but no longer be up for deployment (i.e., work only stateside), that was a choice she could make. It's not something an average enlisted soldier can decide.
All of my [five] brothers and one sister [of two] ended up joining the Military, but different branches... So, when I turned seventeen the question never seemed to be if I would join the military or go to college. It was only, which branch of the military will it be? (61)
So he brings to this a different perspective than you might get otherwise, and a certain bluntness:
When I first thought about joining the military I took [a vocational aptitude test]. I got a great score and the Army told me I could have practically any job I wanted. I told the recruiter that I'd take whichever job had the highest bonus and the biggest kicker for school. He said an OR medic gets an eight thousand dollar bonus and a monthly GI bill kicker (for college) of three hundred and fifty dollars a month. He did explain what an OR medic actually does, but at the age of seventeen I was too busy daydreaming all of the magical things I could do with eight thousand dollars. (15)
Working on the Iraqi relaxes me a little bit. I know I'm doing my best to try to save him, but I also know that, truthfully, if he dies it won't be as big a deal as if an American dies. If that happened on my table everyone would read about it back in the States and his name would be in a wall, forever engraving my inability not [sic] to save his life. But if an Iraq [sic] dies, I know that most likely he will be given a paupers [sic] funeral and back in the States his name won't appear except as a statistic. (31)
I don't mean to suggest that Anthony's depiction of the situation is without any complexity—among other things, he is quick to note both that both Americans and Iraqis suffer from war in Iraq—but rather that he's coming at it from a different angle than, say, [b:Chris Coppola|6952515|Coppola A Pediatric Surgeon in Iraq|Chris Coppola|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328774894s/6952515.jpg|7187231]. Did my fingers itch with desire to fix the damn proofreading already? Yes.* Did I sometimes sigh over the amount of judgement? Yes. But there's still something to be learned here.
*Or possibly they itched from eczema. Take your pick.
stackednpainted's review
4.0
In Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq, Michael Anthony tells his experiences from one year in Iraq as an OR medic. Summarizing this memoir simply is not possible without giving away too many details or leaving question marks hanging in the open, so I won't even attempt to do this.
While I read Mass Casualties, a childhood friend of mine, who is a lot like a big brother to me, was in Afganisthan, so it was both an emotional as well as a though-provoking read for me. Without whitewashing the events or taking a side in the ever-present question of righteousness of the war, Anthony tells it the way he remembers it (with confirmation from his fellow soldiers).
Anthony's experiences in Iraq and with his fellow soldiers are in part shocking, to put it mildly. While I expected some of what I read, I would never have expected it to be just so deceptive, so many orders that don't make much sense from a non-military point of view, and so many events and behaviors non of us would call honorable. But that is what makes this book so good, the honesty with which everything is portrayed.
With Mass Casualties, Michael Anthony wrote a wonderful diary-style memoir about his experiences during his time in Iraq, which I enjoyed reading.
While I read Mass Casualties, a childhood friend of mine, who is a lot like a big brother to me, was in Afganisthan, so it was both an emotional as well as a though-provoking read for me. Without whitewashing the events or taking a side in the ever-present question of righteousness of the war, Anthony tells it the way he remembers it (with confirmation from his fellow soldiers).
Anthony's experiences in Iraq and with his fellow soldiers are in part shocking, to put it mildly. While I expected some of what I read, I would never have expected it to be just so deceptive, so many orders that don't make much sense from a non-military point of view, and so many events and behaviors non of us would call honorable. But that is what makes this book so good, the honesty with which everything is portrayed.
With Mass Casualties, Michael Anthony wrote a wonderful diary-style memoir about his experiences during his time in Iraq, which I enjoyed reading.
jasonsensation's review
3.0
It was okay, it was an easy read. I kept reading to expect something more, but in the end i never found it.
bookishdea's review
4.0
I picked up this book because I am seriously looking into enlisting in the USAR as a medic, and have been researching the subject to death. While I would want to enlist as a Healthcare specialist/combat medic and SPC Anthony is a OR tech, it was still a very interesting read. I really liked the inside look. I also enjoyed the writing style. It is a different point of view, and it does an excellent job of showing that. Nothing is sugar coated. Great book, an enjoyable read.
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