Paradise General: Riding the Surge at a Combat Hospital in Iraq

Written by Dave Hnida

Narrated by George K Wilson

A family doctor with limited surgical experience, Dr. Dave Hnida volunteered for two tours of duty in Iraq-first as a battalion surgeon with a combat unit and then as trauma chief at the busiest Combat Support Hospital (CSH) during the Surge. With honesty and candor, and the goofy, self-deprecating humor that sustained him and his fellow doctors through their darkest hours, he provides an astonishing firsthand account of the psychological horror show of conducting medical care in the front lines of an unscripted war.

Like a modern-day M*A*S*H, Dr. Hnida and his team conducted surgery under terrible conditions in a series of tents connected to the occasional run-down building. With an unrelenting caseload, his CSH, the only one staffed by reservists-older, more experienced physicians (who were also more disdainful of authority)-soon became the medivac destination of choice because of their high survival rate, an astounding 99.5 percent.

Dr. Hnida has suffered some very dark hours. Not only were nine of the students killed in the Columbine shootings his family practice patients, but his daughter, a place kicker and the first female to score a point in an NCAA Division I football game, was the victim in a widely publicized rape case. He took from these events not hopelessness but rather an overwhelming desire to help as many young people as he could. His decision, at forty-eight, to enlist as a reservist in the Iraq war, is a true testament to his commitment to fulfill that goal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Apr 27, 2010
• ISBN: 9781400185542

Dave Hnida

Dr. Dave Hnida is a family physician and medical commentator. He has worked as a local and national correspondent for NBC and CBS, and has made appearances on the Today show and The Early Show. He lives with his family in Littleton, Colorado.

Reviews for Paradise General

[Alfredo Perez · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What an inspiring story. Must be read to see what drs in war zones have to deal with.

[read4to4live · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My emotional reaction to this book echoed my emotional reaction to The Good Soldiers: We should read and reread these books to face the cost of our war in Iraq. It's one thing to read the memoirs of soldiers, and it's a good thing. But it's something else to read about a combat hospital, where day after day, broken body after broken body literally embody the cost of war. These books leave me utterly disgusted with military leaders who excelled at logistics and failed at humanity. I am in awe of the soldiers and doctors and medical staff who rise above their leaders to look after each other.Other than the emotional impact, this book is an easy read, simply illustrating the author's key insights and memories of his second tour in Iraq.

[nancynova · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

medicine bookbox; family doc in his 40s deploys twice to Iraq, this book is about his time during the second deployment at a combat support hospital. When he got there, the medics and all called it f*&%king Paradise, so Paradise General it was. He had a smidge of time to partner with the outgoing doc, before becoming the ER Trauma jack-of-all-trades. Along with other docs that rotated in with him, including a surgeon and ortho doc, they just patched everyone up with "spaghetti and meatball" surgery and then they were sent along to Germany (the Americans) or Iraq hospitals (the Iraqi police and soldiers). And sometimes he's running Sunday clinic, full of sore throats, hemmorhoids, and migraine headaches. Dehydration was an issue too, as the temp was 90 degrees at night and 130 degrees during the day. The choppers ("birds") would land just outside the ER tent, rocking the camp which he got used to after a while. The medics would sprint the wounded in, Dave and others secure the airway, IVs into each arm, dump in blood for most and scoot them out the back door into the OR tent for patching up for flight. Sterile it was not - and no way to make it so. So antibiotics heavily pumped in too. Quite an interesting read.

[emed0s · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The author's view on the day to day life on a FOB is certainly entertaining and all his descriptions of the work at the hospital are, at the very least, endearing. One can only hope that he will decide to publish a book about his experiences on his first deployment.

[stbalbach_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Paradise General is a personal memoir about a 3 month tour of duty in a M*A*S*H-like hospital in Iraq in 2007. Dr. Hnida ("Dave") talks about the intense injuries and drama that arrive by helicopter carrying plenty of horrible things like limbs/face/balls/heads blown apart, soldier gang rape, suicides, cancer, etc.. not meant to shock, it's the reality of what they do. Dave is very human, able to show a wide range of emotions such as fear of his first days facing responsibility for someones life, anger at Army protocol that keep him out of the mess tent without socks, compassion for a young mans life who he was unable to save, and good natured humor all around. The many swings of emotion in the book reflect what it's like in an ER and you come out of it a little exhausted, maybe a little changed. To his credit Dave allowed a dozen or more people he worked with to read the unpublished manuscript to correct it for inaccuracies. This of course means we don't get any real dirt or nastiness, but that is alright by me. It's also pleasantly free of political bickering, ideological slant and soap boxing. Dave is an Everyman, volunteering to do his part for his country, making the best of bad situations and happy to return home to wife and kids. Despite the horror of the job, Dave retains a positive outlook and good sense of humor to remind his patients, and us: so long as your alive, everything is good.