medic books
 

I am wondering what book(s) you would reccomend by and/or about combat medics? I own Medic by Leo Litwak but am wondering if there are any in particular that any of you have read that you would give your stamp of approval too? Veitnam era? WW2? Special Ops medics? thanx in advance

krader

James C. Donahue wrote some good books. He served as a Special Forces Medic in the Mobile Guerrilla Force's.

He wrote:

Blackjack-33
Blackjack-34
Mobile Guerrilla Force

Bruce H. Norton wrote some good books also. He was a Navy Hospital Corpsman, who served on the Marines Force Recon teams.

He wrote:

Force Recon Diary, 1969
Force Recon Diary, 1970

I've read both Donahue's and Norton's work. Both are great (I particularly liked the Mobile Guerrilla Force series) , but I found they did not detail their medical assessment's or treatment much.

I enjoyed "None Braver" by Michael Hirsch. It gives an account of several USAF Pararescue missions in Afghanistan, and get's into a bit more detail on the medical side, including at least one incident that led to Pararescue medics (and other SOF medics I would guess) being allowed to carry whole blood in addition to IV solutions. The only downside (if you count this as a down side) is that a lot of the text deals with events not directly involving Pararescue work.

All in all, it is the best book I've read on Pararescue to date.

Another book I enjoyed is "Trauma Junkie" by Janice Hudson, which is about a civilian emergency flight nurse responding to nasty trauma calls in remote areas of California. While not military oriented, it may be of interest due to it's focus on real life major trauma calls combined with aeromedical operations.