The Dirty Boots: The Stories of a Reluctant Warrior
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- John Holm
- https://www.pubmatch.com/john-holm.html
More About This Title The Dirty Boots: The Stories of a Reluctant Warrior
- English
English
It is 1966, when a nineteen-year-old boy from Three Rivers, Michigan, follows family tradition by enlisting in the United States Navy. A plan which he “thinks” will guarantee an uneventfful tour of duty aboard a US naval ship goes awry when he is deposited in the middle of a war zone in South Vietnam. For the next gruelling year, he performs the duties of a fleet marine force medic, caring for wounded and dying American marines. Dubbed Doc John by his comrades, he soon becomes entrenched in a strange, dangerous world, where he becomes both witness and reluctant warrior. Whether he is patching up wounded comrades or placing Band-Aids on scrapes of native children, young Doc John somehow manages to do an impossible job, even as the world is falling down around him. He not only learns the sad lessons of war, but survives them and finds himself in the process. These are the experiences of a different kind of soldier, who manages to traverse a minefield of emotional upheaval and can still tell his stories with honesty and self-deprecating humor, exemplyfying the resiliency of the human spirit.
- English
English
John Holm was a navy hospital corpsman and fleet marine force medic with a rifle platoon in Vietnam 1968–1969. These are his stories about that experience.This is his first book.
- English
English
The US Review of Books by RJM Terrado
“For over two months, I had carried around a beer, a left over from New Year’s, in the bottom of my pack. One of those nights, six of us split it.”
Generally, narrative about the Vietnam War s tinted with horror and emotive doldrums, but what if the account comes from a combat medic? Would the chronicle be exceptionally morbid? Would it be quadruple times heart wrenching?
In The Dirty Boots, former combat medic Holm presents his Vietnam War narrative from a different lens. Holm richly informs his readers about his experience starting with his life before Vietnam culminating on marrying his wife Harriet and attending a Nursing School. He tones down the usual sullen atmosphere of Vietnam War narrative as he intensifies the humor about day-to-day war life. His vivid descriptions of the war environment and the action-filled and downtime periods in the jungle pave to a historical narrative that is not necessarily gruesome, and yet is insightful and convincing.
“For over two months, I had carried around a beer, a left over from New Year’s, in the bottom of my pack. One of those nights, six of us split it.”
Generally, narrative about the Vietnam War s tinted with horror and emotive doldrums, but what if the account comes from a combat medic? Would the chronicle be exceptionally morbid? Would it be quadruple times heart wrenching?
In The Dirty Boots, former combat medic Holm presents his Vietnam War narrative from a different lens. Holm richly informs his readers about his experience starting with his life before Vietnam culminating on marrying his wife Harriet and attending a Nursing School. He tones down the usual sullen atmosphere of Vietnam War narrative as he intensifies the humor about day-to-day war life. His vivid descriptions of the war environment and the action-filled and downtime periods in the jungle pave to a historical narrative that is not necessarily gruesome, and yet is insightful and convincing.
