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The 8th Field Hospital

by Dr. Andrew Carr

124 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #05-0616; ISBN 1-4120-5718-3; US$22.00, C$25.00, EUR18.00, £12.50

Dr. Carr served at the 8th field hospital in Nha Trang during the Vietnam War. He transports you back to 1966 through his unique perspective about the human side of war.

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About the Book      About the Author      Excerpts      Catalogue Information

About the Book

Welcome to the life of Dr. Andrew C. Carr, a young medical officer who was drafted into the Vietnam War and served at the 8th field hospital in Nha Trang. This is not a medical book; you will find few clinical details since they can be read in articles published elsewhere. Instead, Dr. Carr will transport you back to 1966 through his unique perspective about the human side of war. He will also describe his poignant return to Vietnam in 2004.

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About the Author

Dr. Carr retired from medicine in 1998 after practicing neurology for 31 years. He lives with his wife, Roberta, and their two cats, Zoë and Monti, in Whittier, California. He has given up medicine to practice fishing and he has become quite skilled at diagnosing the best places to catch halibut and salmon in Alaska. He will catch your attention with these stories from long ago.

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Excerpts

THE JOY OF BEING A COMMANDING OFFICER

After a 10-day stay in Long Bin, I was ready to return to the 8th Field Hospital. I left on a flight out from Bin Hoa, and the airplane traced its previous route back to Nha Trang - with one big exception. I was informed that after Phan Thiet and Phan Rang, we were traveling to Da Nang, which bypassed my destination of Nha Trang. I learned that Da Nang was the destination of several senior officers on board. After taking these senior officers to Da Nang, the plane would retrace the flight pattern, halfway down the country to Nha Trang. Besides adding two hours to an already uncomfortable flight, this flight change worried me as I had heard there were frequent attacks on airplanes coming in and out of Da Nang.

As it turned out, when we stopped at Phan Rang we picked up casualties that had been involved in a recent ambush by the Viet Cong. I quickly learned that as soon as an airplane or any other vehicle takes on casualties; the ranking medical officer takes charge of the aircraft or vehicle. Since I was the only medical officer on board, this meant I was in charge despite the fact that there were two Majors, a Lieutenant Colonel, and a Bird Colonel on board. Once the medical passengers were loaded on board, the airplane captain came back and asked me for orders. I seized the opportunity and told him that one of the injured men had a sucking chest wound that required immediate attention. This assessment was partially true. A medic had placed a Vaseline gauze dressing over the wound, which had prevented it from being a sucking wound‹but no one else knew this fact. I said, "This man must be taken care of in a field hospital as soon as possible." After hearing this information, the patient became justifiably alarmed. I bent down and whispered in his ear that he would be OK. I asked the patient, "You want to be in a clean bed with good food and nurses taking care of you as soon as possible, don't you?" "Yeah, I sure do", he quietly replied. I asked him to just play along with me, where upon he clutched his chest and began to moan loudly. I told him not to overdo it and he quieted down. The closest field hospital was Nha Trang, which brought me home without having to travel through Da Nang. While the other superior officers complained, fretted, and fumed because they wanted to go directly to their destination in Da Nang, it did them no good because I was the ranking medical officer.

When we arrived at Nha Trang, there was an ambulance waiting for us because the captain had radioed ahead to describe our medical emergency. I told the ambulance driver that I needed to ride with the patient to the 8th Field Hospital because the patient had a sucking chest wound. After looking at the patient and looking quizzically at me, the driver followed my orders. When we arrived at the 8th Field Hospital, a thoracic surgeon met the patient and gave him a brief examination. After the exam, he looked up at me said, "This patient does not have a sucking chest wound!" I replied, "What do I know, I'm only a neurologist." And that was all that was said about the incident. Within 15 minutes, I arrived at my villa safely and was enjoying a cold beer.

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Catalogue Information

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