Overview

"Exit Wounds: A Vietnam Elegy is an intimate, boots-on-the-ground memoir that chronicles one captain's brutal experience in the Vietnam War. On October 19, 1965, American Special Forces in Vietnam came under attack at their camp at Plei Me. This marked the first major confrontation between the North Vietnamese and US armies during the war. Throughout six days of constant hostile fire, Captain Lanny Hunter sorted the seriously wounded from the dead and saved those comrades-in-arms he could. For his actions, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. In Exit Wounds, Hunter recalls his tour in the central highlands of Vietnam in 1965/66 at the bloody interface of medicine and combat. Paralleling this story is his return in 1997 to find and help his Montagnard interpreter, Y-Kre Mlo, after ten years in a communist reeducation camp. This pilgrimage takes Hunter back to old haunts and battlegrounds--and to a war now seen through a very different lens. Peopled with those who were dedicated, courageous, gentle, proud, profane, and a little mad, this book explores what happens when leaders place personal ambition over honor, and America's ""moral high ground"" is soaked with the blood of its young men and women. So much more than a memoir, Exit Wounds is a poetic and profound story that reflects on the human condition, duty, honor, faithfulness, and how the scars remain long after the war is over."

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"""Exit Wounds is the finest memoir of the Vietnam War that I have read. It is written from the perspective of a citizen-soldier whose personal story placed him in the front ranks of the Vietnam War as a medical officer with the Special Forces. His experiences in-country ranged from combat to the farcical. Hunter returned to Vietnam in 1997 in response to a letter from his Montagnard interpreter requesting help after ten years in a communist reeducation camp. The stories of these two men are related contextually during their travels on Hunter's return pilgrimage. The narrative is seasoned with the author's insights on history, politics, medicine, the horror and rapture of war, and the ambiguity of the human condition, citizenship, cultural imperialism, religion, morality, loss, and recovery. Hunter writes with the precision of a surgeon, the arresting images of a poet, and the compassion of both--which he is."" -- ""Karl Marlantes, USMC, Vietnam, 1968/69, author of What It Is Like to Go to War, Deep River, and the New York Times bestseller Matterhorn"" ""Hunter not only documents his own boots-on-the-floor experiences as a doctor in the Vietnam War in 1965-66, but he also revisits the scene of some of his most harrowing moments."" -- ""New York Post"" ""The memoir seamlessly blends these two Vietnams--1965 and 1997--as Hunter and Y-Kre tromp old battlegrounds and reflect on their lives, together and apart. Hunter's prose is poetic, at times staccato, and thrums throughout with a pulse-pounding urgency. Exit Wounds is transformative and transcendent...and not to be missed."" -- ""Historical Novel Society"" ""This book is important, and I urge every American, veteran, and civilian alike to read it. Lanny Hunter has much to teach us and the skill to do it well."" -- ""John Musgrave, USMC, author and narrator for Ken Burns's series The Vietnam War"""

Author Information

Lanny Hunter is one of the most highly decorated medical officers of the Vietnam War, having been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, Bronze Star-V, the Air Medal, Purple Heart, Combat Medical Badge, and the Vietnamese Gallantry Cross with Gold Star. He has lectured in medical, military, educational, civil, and church venues. Hunter has written several works, including Living Dogs and Dead Lions, My Soul to Keep, and Stories of Desire and Narratives of Faith. He lives with his wife, Carolyn, in Denver, Colorado.

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