Vietnam: There & Back: A Combat Medic’s Chronicle
By: Jim “Doc” Purtell / Narrated By: Eric Martin
Length: 3 hrs and 34 mins
Toooo short! I wish it had been longer
Jim Purtell was a normal teenager, a little bit wild, a little bit rebellious, not sure what he’s going to do after high school. But he’s sure he needs to get away from his cold, remote, emotionally abusive father, so he joins up with the Army and finds he’s been assigned to do hospital work.
Hospital work. The word “medic” never enters the conversation. Imagine his surprise when he discovers himself on a chopper and about to land in hostile territory in-country in Vietnam, a medic to replace the one who was just killed. He automatically becomes “Doc” to the grunts, whether he feels he’s up to it or not. He is, after all, barely turned nineteen, going on to take care of other youngsters.
Vietnam: There & Back covers Purtell’s life with his family, his life amongst the grunts and the ceaseless boredom which is punctuated by complete and utter hell. Over and over, he comes across the gruesome, comes across friends newly-killed, comes across the thought that he’s “just not gonna live through this”.
It’s a great listen, even if Eric Martin isn’t the most dramatic narrator; the text speaks for itself with a weight and depth all its own. Purtell wrote it in an attempt to cleanse his soul, looking at what happened to him in Vietnam and what happened to him when he returned. There’s not much about his life post-Vietnam, just that he definitely suffered from PTSD, self-medicated with drugs and alcohol, felt depersonalized by his experiences. He also felt very sad and relates what an odd sensation it was to watch the country celebrate the return of the Hostages (Iran) as opposed to the vitriol that he and his fellow comrades in arms were met with upon their own return to American society. It’s kinda heartbreaking.
Since the book is mostly Purtell coming to grips with his experiences, it’s a pretty short listen. He just wanted to document some of the things that scarred him, some of the things that stood out, mostly meaning to write it, mull it all over, then delete it, no one the wiser. But through encouragement from other vets who saw their own struggles in his storytelling, he fleshed out Vietnam: There & Back and brought it to the public only recently.
This was the audiobook y’all unanimously voted for my Next Listen, and I must thank y’all most heartily. I loooove Military Histories, and when I was little, watching the war in Vietnam on the news (right after Captain Kangaroo), I can proudly say that those guys were my heroes (especially POWs!). I’m very happy to add this book to my Library, and I listened to it twice to make sure I did it justice in my brain.
I can’t call it a nice listen, but it certainly was a dear one.
What can I say? All those guys are still my heroes!
**UPDATE: Good news! Jim Purtell, the author, did me the great honor of getting in touch with me regarding the review (He thought I got the real sense of it... Phew! Veterans of the war in Vietnam would be the LAST individuals I would want to offend!) and later sent in an update in his status. This is fantastic as anyone who listens to this audiobook will wind up caring about his friends and him.
Though there have been struggles, he went on from the war to earn a Masters Degree in Guidance and Counseling, and when you check out his website, you’ll see that he’s active in efforts to end veteran suicide. Not only that but he’s done some pretty emotionally evocative songwriting also. I must say that my particular favorite was Forgotten No More probably because of the audiobook on Korea, A Christmas Far From Home, which I reviewed for our Christmas edition.
We’ve opened up the Comments section on this review if you’d like to leave words of care and kindness to Jim and the men he served with, or about how awesome Vietnam vets are, never getting the respect they deserved until decades later when people actually started pretending they did time there.
This was such a hard-hitting audiobook that of COURSE it made my Favorites for 2019. I wish all the best!
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