Paradise General: Riding the Surge at a Combat Hospital in Iraq [Hardcover]

Paradise General is a story about Dave Hnida's journey into combat medicine, a story of a man struggling to understand his own motivations for joining the Army in his late 40s, struggling to balance his need for family and their need for him with the world's need for him, and his need for the world. This tale is also an examination of the complex ways in which we attempt to make sense of and atone for our individual, familial, and collective pasts. But more than this, it is a portrait of devotion to family and country, a tale of commitment, and a testimony to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of tremendous obstacles.

Paradise General is highly informative, introspective, and conceptually rich, but it does not take itself too seriously. Although you will learn a lot about combat wounds and how they are treated on the ground, about the moral complexities of combat medicine under the Geneva Conventions, and about how doctors fit into (or do not fit into) the military chain of command, you will also learn about the rejuvenating power of humor, and about the value of some good old-fashioned humility and self-deprecation. One never gets the sense that Dr. Hnida pulls rank on his readers. Despite his decorations and professional degrees, Paradise General creates an image of Dr. Hnida as simply Dave, a dude you hang out with at the barbeque. I can attest to the authenticity of this characterization personally: Dr. Hnida's daughter was a senior in my Psychology of War class at the University of Colorado, and Dr. Hnida was gracious enough to visit our class for a lecture on treating combat trauma. He was much in person the way he appears in his book: intelligent, funny, approachable, down-to-earth, a touch irreverent ... emotionally present, highly contemplative, and a big systems thinker.

Paradise General is not for the feint of heart. After all, it is, at the end of the day, a story of war, and as such it is a story of sorrow and loss and fear, of blood and tissue, of rage and unrelenting grief. It will bring you into and through the fog of war, the doldrums of war, the adrenaline of war. Be warned, this book will make you feel things that are uncomfortable to feel, and it will make you take a good hard look at your moral assumptions. You will indeed, as others have written, vacillate between crying and laughing, sometimes on the same page.

This book is a tribute to the fallen, to their families, and to those who would try to save them. It is written with deep and tender awareness of the rawness of war as it reverberates through families and cultures. In an era in which "health care" is too often a politicized buzz word, this book is a refreshing reminder of a physician's most noble calling: the call to serve and to sustain life.

Paradise General reflects great credit on Dr. Hnida, the United States Army, the medical profession, and fathers everywhere.

I finished this book in one sitting. It never bored me and the diachotomy between the frantic race of treating injured soldiers from both sides, and the crazy things Hnida and his collegues would get up to to relieve the boredom and pressures of a war zone, rival the very best of M*A*S*H episodes. This kind of story, an every day man plucked from suburbia into the senselessness of war, and how that every day man
deals with it and reveals his heroism (though he doesn't see it that way)--well this kind of story just never gets old.
Entertaining and meaningful. Interesting pictures. Highly recommended.

Dr. Dave Hnida tells an incredible and honest story about the intensity of being a doctor in Iraq. Dr. Hnida is a family practitioner who decided to join the army at 48 years old. He and his colleagues work tiring 12 hour shifts 7 days a week. He describes a certain camaraderie with the men and woman that worked beside him at the CSH. His story looks at both the good and bad that can happen on a military camp- from practical joking and saving lives to suicides and attempted rapes. Dr. Hnida is not a bumper-sticker patriot. He cares deeply about the soldiers fighting for our country and it shows in his writing. Everyone who has a loved one in the military should read this book. It might make you rest a little easier to know that they are in the hands of caring professionals like Dr. Hnida.