Book review: Medic’s story finds humor, horror in Iraq hospital - Entertainment, Books - Army Times

Book review: Medic’s story finds humor, horror in Iraq hospital

Never mind the somber, serious-sounding title. “Mass Casualties” is like watching a few episodes of a sitcom that happens to take place in a combat hospital.

There’s the usual cast: The helpless and hapless grunts vs. the incompetent and mean Staff Sgt. Gagney and the incompetent and oblivious Col. Jelly. The plot runs the spectrum of emotions.

Anthony’s first book is a “true story” but — the foreword tips you off — does “not represent word-for-word documentation.”

But what is true to the author is occasionally funny and occasionally touching.

Anthony and friends “formed a common enemy — no, not Al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden, Staff Sergeant Gagney.” That’s easily understood. Gagney’s abusive behavior is always outrageous and would seem criminal if the tone of Anthony’s book were less glib and more substantive.

What he does report is the black comedy of being coerced into taking anthrax vaccinations and working inhuman shifts at the 178th Combat Support Hospital in Iraq, where every woman and man in uniform (except the author) gets out of uniform long enough to have sex, often qualifying for adultery.

Everybody else seems to be taking drugs in order to stay alert while on duty in the operating room or taking drugs to sleep when they are not. On top of all that, Anthony acquires an addiction to cigarettes. War is hellacious.

And sometimes — this is where “somber” comes in — war is horrific:

“I spend my days walking around in a tired daze, and I spend my nights tossing and turning as I run through the dream world. Am I awake or dreaming? It doesn’t matter any more. When I close my eyes I dream of death and war. When I open my eyes I see death and war.”

Despite such anguish, Anthony kept a sense of humor. He kept a lucid journal, too. The jacket says he is pursuing a degree in creative writing. “Mass Casualties” is evidence that he knows the creative part. Perhaps some day he will return to this material and write more eloquently and uniquely about his experiences.

Meanwhile, “Mass Casualties” is no mishmash, but it makes you miss “MASH” (the multilayered, multitextured 1970 movie).

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“Mass Casualties: A Young Medic’s True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq,” by Spc. Michael Anthony. Adams Media, $22.95, 234 pages.