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mburnamfink's review against another edition
4.0
Joe Parner answered President Kennedy's call to "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" by joining the Army in 1966 and going through Special Forces medic training. He spent a tour with MACV-SOG at the triple border of South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, supporting small reconnaissance teams on dangerous and illegal missions against the Ho Chi Minh trail.
First, the strengths. Parner has an astound memory for names and events. This is how it went down, with photos. One story, discussing a SOG operator who figured out how to use a 60mm mortar as a personal weapon, prompted a 'aw hell no', except there was a photo of the man firing this beast from the hip on the next page. Wow!
As a medic, Parner was adjacent to recon teams rather than on them. He spent a lot of time flying chase, waiting in the last helicopter of a mission in case someone had to be medevaced quickly. While he wasn't on many missions, aside from a few larger company-sized efforts, he showed immense bravery again and again, running towards the fire to bring out SOG operators and their Vietnamese and Montagnard allies.
The writing, with an assist from Dumont, is clear, without a lot of macho posturing. It's also somewhat characterless, closer to unit history than memoir, but still limited by Parner's point of view. And this is a shame, because a combat medic is a very rare role, and Parner hasn't quite fully unburdened him about it. A pretty good book about SOG and medics in the Vietnam War, but probably not the essential one.
First, the strengths. Parner has an astound memory for names and events. This is how it went down, with photos. One story, discussing a SOG operator who figured out how to use a 60mm mortar as a personal weapon, prompted a 'aw hell no', except there was a photo of the man firing this beast from the hip on the next page. Wow!
As a medic, Parner was adjacent to recon teams rather than on them. He spent a lot of time flying chase, waiting in the last helicopter of a mission in case someone had to be medevaced quickly. While he wasn't on many missions, aside from a few larger company-sized efforts, he showed immense bravery again and again, running towards the fire to bring out SOG operators and their Vietnamese and Montagnard allies.
The writing, with an assist from Dumont, is clear, without a lot of macho posturing. It's also somewhat characterless, closer to unit history than memoir, but still limited by Parner's point of view. And this is a shame, because a combat medic is a very rare role, and Parner hasn't quite fully unburdened him about it. A pretty good book about SOG and medics in the Vietnam War, but probably not the essential one.
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