Exit Wounds: A Vietnam Elegy

by Lanny Hunter, Mark Bramhall (Read by)

Overview

More than just a war memoir, Exit Wounds is a powerful story of a medical officer in Vietnam that reflects on duty, ethics, faithfulness, and how individuals are impacted by war.

An intimate boots-on-the-ground story, Hunter’s memoir begins with an intimate portrayal of two men whose lives crossed in Vietnam in 1965 and became irrevocably linked. Lanny Hunter was a Green Beret surgeon and soldier, and Y-Kre Mlo was his Montagnard interpreter. Hunter left Vietnam after the war, only to return in 1995 in response to Y-Kre’s request for help.

Hunter served in Vietnam believing America occupied the moral high ground. He lived the experience “war is hell” but also noted its obverse: war as heaven. In his memoir he explores the notion of both the military and medicine as mystical vocations, and the ambiguities of duty, citizenship, cultural imperialism, spirituality, morality, loss, and recovery.

Peopled with real soldiers who were dedicated, courageous, gentle, proud, profane, and a little mad, and seasoned with Hunter’s personal insights on medicine and moral injury, Exit Wounds is an incredibly insightful book that reveals what happens when America’s leaders place personal ambition above honor and deliberately lie to each other, the citizens, and its army.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798200904785
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	10/10/2023
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x (d)

About the Author

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.

Mark Bramhall has won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration, more than thirty AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has repeatedly been named by AudioFile Magazine and Publishers Weekly among their “Best Voices of the Year.” He is also an award-winning actor whose acting credits include off-Broadway, regional, and many Los Angeles venues as well as television, animation, and feature films. He has taught and directed at the American Academy of Dramatic Art.

Editorial Reviews

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

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

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