Review: BEYOND THE BATTLEFIELD: TRACING THE COURAGE & HEROISM OF THE SEVERELY-WOUNDED MILITARY
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 19, 2012
Five COMPELLING Stars! This is an exceptional, meticulously-researched book which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for author David Wood, who has reported from the 'front lines' of many wars and 'hot spots' for 35 years. Seeing his share of deaths and wounded troops who were "med-evaced" from their units, headed to military trauma facilities, he usually never saw them again. The Huffington Post internet newspaper gave him the chance to followup on severely-wounded military as they returned home for recovery. He discovered that the same attributes of courage and heroism displayed on the battlefield, follow them into their recovery phase in receiving medical treatment and into their re-integration into their families and society in general, sometimes very much changed from the person who went off to war. Many returned missing one or more appendages and/or suffering other forms of body & mind trauma. Thanks to the advances in medical treatment and swift evacuation of the wounded, more military personnel are surviving wounds that would have been fatal in previous wars. The more than 53,000 casualties of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars represent an extremely high survivability rate, exceeding any other US war. But the result is a military and VA medical system that is overwhelmed with survivors, many of whom will be in recovery the rest of their lives. The stories of the battlefield settings, the initial injuries, and subsequent medical treatment of military warriors such as Tyler Southern, Cleveland Kinsey, Robert Fierro, and Bobby Henline, are both heart-rending and very inspiring, showing the problems of the veterans, their families and care givers, military medical facilities and staffs, the VA, and those 'gap' organizations (a list of which is provided herein) that all struggle to provide care for the 'tsunami' of wounded military personnel. This is a 'must read' showing the torturous after-effects of the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars on severely-injured military who gave maximum sacrifices on and 'beyond the battlefield', just short of death itself. My Highest Recommendation. Five EXCELLENT Stars! (1020 KB ~143 pages with photographs. This review is based on a Kindle download in text-to-speech and text modes; Intended to be released in digital form, hopefully this book will be issued in Hardcover and paperback versions.)