Vietnam War Bibliography:

Medical

Richard O. Albert, Bac-Si My: In the Year of the Dog. The author worked as a medical doctor at Phong Dinh Province Hospital, in Can Tho.

Georg W. Alsheimer (a.k.a. Erich Wulff?), Vietnamesische Lehrjahre: 6 Jahre als dt. Arzt in Vietnam, 1961-1967. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1968. 484 pp. Memoir by a German doctor who witnessed the Buddhist uprising in Hue.

Doug Anderson, Keep Your Head Down: Vietnam, the Sixties, and a Journey of Self-Discovery. New York: Norton, 2009. 288 pp. Includes Anderson's life before and after Vietnam, not just his service as a Navy Corpsman with the 1st Marine Division, 1967-68. Probably a revised version of the following item.

K. Douglas Anderson, "Don't Rub Your Eyes: A Memoir of the Vietnam War and the Nineteen Sixties." Ph.D. dissertation, English, University of Connecticut, 2006. AAT 3221527. 236 pp. Anderson served as a combat medic in I Corps, March 1967 to February 1968. Later he joined the anti-war movement.

Carl Bancoff, A Forgotten Man. pb New York: S.P.I. Books, 1992. A doctor in Vietnam.

Dan A. Barker, Warrior of the Heart. Burning Cities Press, 1992.

Marshall Barr, Surgery, Sand and Saigon Tea: An Australian Army Doctor in Viet Nam. Crow's Nest, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2001. xii, 252 pp. Major Barr, an anaesthetist, was in Vietnam from April 1967 to April 1968.

O'Neill Barrett, "Not Much of a War" Nashville, TN: Westview, 2007. viii, 167 pp.

Carl E. Bartecchi, M.D., Soc Trang: A Vietnamese Odyssey. Rocky Mountain Writer's Guild, 1980. An Army flight surgeon who was at Soc Trang 1965-66.

John W. Bennett, Killed in Action--Struck by Lightning: A Viet Nam Combat Medic's Story. Baltimore, MD: United Book Press, 2008. x, 114 pp.

Douglas Bey, Wizard 6: A Combat Psychiatrist in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2006. xii, 280 pp. Bey was division psychiatrist for the 1st Infantry Division, 1969-1970.

Narelle Biedermann, Tears on My Pillow: Australian Nurses in Vietnam. Milsons Point, New South Wales: Random House Australia, 2004. xxx, 250 pp.

Philip Bigler, Hostile Fire: The Life and Death of Lt. Sharon Lane. Arlington, VA: Vandamere, 1996. Lt. Lane was killed by a 122mm rocket on June 8, 1969, at the 312th Evac Hospital in Chu Lai. She was the only U.S. servicewoman killed by hostile fire during the Vietnam War.

Leonard D. Blessing Jr., Warrior Healers: The Untold Story of the Special Forces Medic, Book I, The Beginning. 229 pp. Lincoln, Nebraska: iUniverse, 2006. I believe this is mostly operations in Laos in the early stages of the war there, before the 1962 Geneva Accords.

David Bradford, The Gunners' Doctor: Vietnam Letters. North Sydney, N.S.W.: Random House Australia, 2007. 313 pp.

Patrick Henry Brady, with Meghan Brady Smith, Dead Men Flying: Victory in Viet Nam: The Legend of Dust Off, America's Battlefield Angels. Bennington, VT: Merriam Press, 2010. 290 pp.

Alister Brass, Bleeding Earth: A Doctor Looks at Vietnam. Melbourne: Heinemann, 1968. xvi, 189 pp. Foreword by Harrison Salisbury. By an Australian doctor who was in Vietnam 1966-67 as a special correspondent for The Medical Journal of Australia.

Wayne 'Sam' Brown, Medic. Nambour, Queensland, Australia: Queensland Complete Printing Services, 2002. 326 pp.

Wesley G. Byerly, Nam Doc. New York: Vantage, 1981. 140 pp. Byerly went to Vietnam in 1967 as a volunteer physician.

Ltc. Wesley G. Byerly, Trung Ta Bac Si. Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1986. Byerly, a medical officer in the US Army Reserve, volunteered to serve a tour (April 1969 to March 1970) in Vietnam. The book consists mostly of entries from his diary.

Warren F. Carey and Myles Maxfield, "Intelligence Implications of Disease," Studies in Intelligence 16:2 (1972). How the CIA studies epidemics in foreign (mostly hostile) countries. Mostly about meningitis and influenza in China and the Soviet Union, but includes some discussion of the problems influenza caused for the Vietnamese Communists, especially along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Originally classified Secret. Published unclassified in Studies in Intelligence 64:4 (December 2020), pp. 15-19.

Otto E. Caveda, Sharp Metal Fragments: Memories of Vietnam. Kearney, NE: Morris Publishing, 2001. vii, 248 pp.

Calvin Chapman, "Interview with Calvin Chapman." Oral history interview, conducted by Stephen Maxner, May 23, 2000. 155 pp. Chapman was ROTC at Yale in the late 1940s, entered the Air Force in 1952, went into aerospace medicine, and served a tour, apparently mid 1965 to mid 1966, as an Air Force doctor at Bien Hoa. The text is copyright by, and has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of, the Vietnam Project at Texas Tech University.

Lawrence H. Climo, M.D., "An American Doctor in Vietnam." Vietnam Magazine, April 2003, pp. 26-32. Dr. Climo was drafter after completing medical school in 1965, sent to Vietnam in mid 1966, assigned to the 734th Medical Detachment, in Darlac province, as part of the Military Provincial Hospital Augmentation Program (MILPHAP).

Lawrence H. Climo, M.D., The Patient Was Vietcong: An American Doctor in the Vietnamese Health Service, 1966–1967. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014. 244 pp.

John "Doc" Combs, Mercy Warriors: Saving Lives under Fire. Green Cross Foundation, (2002?). 251 pp. Astor, FL: Donna R. Combs, 2003. xxvi, 251 pp. "Combs was a corpsman and nurse with a 3rd Marine Division artillery battery and a Vietnamese children's hospital in Dong Ha in 1968-69" (VVA Veteran Aug 2002 p. 29), but this is apparently a general study of Army medics and Navy corpsmen, not a memoir.

Robert W. Costigan and Helen A. Cummings, Doc Zoo Combat Medic. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2007. viii, 187 pp. Costigan, a medic, began service with the 173d Airborne Brigade in January 1969 (after a brief time with Fifth Special Forces Group).

Barbara Deardorff, Ann Thompson, et. al., Another Kind of War Story: Army Nurses Look Back to Vietnam. Lebanon, PA: A. Thompson, 1993. xi, 160 pp. ISBN: 0963677403

Lt. Col. Francis C. Dimond, Jr., and Maj. Norman M. Rich, "M-16 Rifle Wounds in Vietnam," Journal of Trauma, 7:5 (September 1967), pp. 619-25.

Stephen H. Donovan and Frederick Borchardt, Long Daze at Long Binh: The humorous adventures of two draftees trained as combat medics and sent off to set up a field hospital in South Vietnam. Madison, WI: DCI Communications, 2017. 380 pp. Donovan and Borchardt served at the 24th Evac Hospital, 1966-1968. "Based on a true story," in other words somewhat fictionalized.

Rick Eilert, For Self and Country: For the Wounded in Vietnam the Journey Home Took More Courage than Going into Battle. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2010. 304 pp.

Margaret Ellen, "Witness to War: The War Stories of Women Vietnam Veterans." Ed.D. dissertation, (Counseling?), University of Massachusetts, 1998. 253 pp. DA 9823764. War stories of five women (apparently including the author): three nurses, one Red Cross worker, and one civilian who worked in refugee camps.

Barbara Evans, Caduceus in Saigon: A Medical Mission to South Vietnam. London: Hutchinson, 1968. 210 pp. A British medical mission that went to Vietnam in 1966.

Daniel E. Evans, Jr., and Charles Sasser, Doc: Platoon Medic. New York: Pocket Books, 1998. xviii, 248 pp. Evans served in Company B, 4/39 Infantry (David Hackworth's battalion), 9th Infantry Division, October 1968 to July 1969.

Herbert Ford, No Guns on their Shoulders. Nashville: Southern Publishing Association, 1968. 144 pp. Seventh Day Adventist medics in Vietnam.

Dan Freedman and Jacqueline Rhoads, eds., Nurses in Vietnam: The Forgotten Veterans. Austin: Texas Monthly Press, 1987. xiii, 164 pp.

Ronald J. Glasser, Wounded: Vietnam to Iraq. New York: George Braziller, 2006. 151 pp.

Fred Gloeckner, A Civilian Doctor in Vietnam. Philadelphia: Winchell, 1972. 123 pp. Author was in Vietnam (at Ben Tre) only briefly, with Project Vietnam. Anti-war in tone. Warning: partially fictionalized.

Jeffrey Greenhut, "Medical Civic Action in Low-intensity Conflict: The Vietnam Experience." In John W. DePauw and George A. Luz, eds., Winning The Peace: The Strategic Implications of Military Civic Action. New York: Praeger, 1992. The full text is available online to paid subscribers of Questia.

Olga Gruhzit-Hoyt, A Time Remembered: American Women in the Vietnam War. Novato: Presidio, 1999. 272 pp. Both nurses and a variety of others. The story of a nurse being killed, on p. 152, is untrue.

Mike Hall, The Medic and the Mama-san. Cortland, NY: Hawkeye, 1994. Hall was a medic and operating room technician at the 36th Evac, in Vung Tau, 1968-1969. He married a Vietnamese.

Henry Hamilton, Phan Rang Chronicles: A British Surgeon in Vietnam, September, 1966 - May, 1968. Morrisville, NC: Lulu.com, 2007. 318 pp. A diary.

Lynn Hampton, The Fighting Strength: Memoirs of a Combat Nurse in Vietnam. Canton, OH: Daring Books, 1990; pb New York: Warner, 1992. 246 pp. Lt. Hampton arrived in Vietnam in March 1967.

Robert M. Hardaway, ed., Care of the Wounded in Vietnam. Manhattan, Kansas: Sunflower University Press, 1988.

Allen Hassan, MD, JD, DVM, as told to David Drum, Failure to Atone: The True Story of a Jungle Surgeon in Vietnam. Sacramento: Failure to Atone Press, 2006. 272 pp. Hassan went to Vietnam in May 1968 as a civilian doctor with the American Medical Association's Volunteer Physicians for Vietnam program, and went to the Quang Tri Provincial Hospital. Chapter 21 includes accounts by other doctors who were in the program.

Marva Hasselblad with Dorothy Brandon, Lucky-Lucky: A Nurse's Story of Life at a Hospital in Vietnam. M. Evans & Co., 1966. pb New York: Fawcett, 1967. 191 pp. The author worked at a Mennonite hospital in Nhatrang, 1962 to 1965.

Leonard D. Heaton, Military Surgical Practices of the United States Army in Viet Nam. Chicago: Year Book Medical Publishers, 1966. 59 pp.

Jan K. Herman, Navy Medicine in Vietnam: Oral Histories from Dien Bien Phu to the Fall of Saigon. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009. vii, 357 pp. An oversize book with illustrations.

Dr. Byron E. Holley, Vietnam 1968-1969: A Battalion Surgeon's Journal. New York: Ivy, 1993. 211 pp. Holley served with the 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta.

Lieutenant Commander Bobbi Hovis, Station Hospital Saigon: A Navy Nurse in Vietnam, 1963-1964. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1992. xvi, 167 pp.

Larry P. Kammholtz, Moc Hoa (mock wauh): A Vietnam Medical-Military Adventure. Oshkosh, Wisconsin: Starboard Pub., 1990. 103 pp.

Christine L. Kane, "Inside the Death Factory: Women Vets of Vietnam". Boston Review, June 1981. The account of U.S. casualties in 1970, in the third paragraph, looks seriously exaggerated to me.

James C. Kearney and William H. Clamurro, Duty to Serve, Duty to Conscience: The Story of Two Conscientious Objector Combat Medics. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2023. 288 pp. Kearney and Clamurro were conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War, not religous objectors to all war. They were in Selective Service catefory 1-A-O, serving the Army but not required to use or carry weapons. They arrived in Vietnan probably about the beginning of 1970.

James Michael Kelsh, Triage: The Gathering Place. New York: Carlton, 1977. 122 pp. Kelsh was an Army doctor in Vietnam.

John Kildea, No Names, No Faces, No Pain: A Voice from Vietnam. Westminster, MD: Heritage Books, 2006. 118 pp. Kildea was an Army operating room nurse in Vietnam 1967-68.

Charles M. Kinney, Borrowed Time: A Medic's View of the Vietnam War. Victoria, British Columbia: Trafford, 2003. x, 152 pp. Edited by Pamela Gillis Watson. Kinney became the senior aidman for C Company, 2/7 Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, in November 1965; served until November 1966.

Larry Kipp, Small War: My Twenty-Seven Months as a Medic in Vietnam. Hellgate Press, 2022. Kipp was in Vietnam 1967 to 1970. For part or all of that time he was with the 45th Medical Company based at Lai Khe.

Jerry Krizan and Robert Dumont, Bac Si: A Green Beret Medic's War in Vietnam. Philadelphia and Oxford: Casemate, 2014. Sergeant Krizan served 1968-69 with with Team A-331, at Loc Ninh, Binh Long Province, III corps.

Alan S. Levin, M.D., J.D., and J. B. Gentry, Flight Quack: The true story of the Vietnam War's most decorated flight surgeon, who became a CIA assassin. Austin, TX: Phaktory, 2022. After Levin finished medical school, he was drafted. He was sent to Vietnam in February 1967, and assigned as a flight surgeon in northern I Corps, serving aboard USMC medical evacuation helicopters of HMM-265. He says he later served in a CIA assassination team as part of Operation Phoenix. I am suspicious of this story.

Bonni McKeown, Peaceful Patriot: The Story of Tom Bennett. Capon Springs, WV: Peaceful Patriot Press. Tom Bennett was a conscientious objector who became a combat medic, was killed in action near Pleiku on February 11, 1969, serving with B Company, 1/14 Infantry, 4th Infantry Division; he was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.

Greg McPartlin, Combat Corpsman: The Vietnam Memoir of a Navy SEALs Medic. New York: Berkley Caliber (Penguin), 2005. 319 pp. McPartlin joined the Navy in order to become a corpsman assigned to the Marines. He arrived in Vietnam at the beginning of 1968, assigned to Third Force Recon. After three months, his platoon had suffered such heavy losses it was rotated out of Vietnam. He then shifted to become a medic with the SEALs. He went to Vietnam late in 1969 and was assigned to Old Nam Can, in the Ca Mau Peninsula.

Bill Meyer, Combat Medic: The 79th Evac. Perc Press, 1998.

Randy K. Mills, Troubled Hero: A Medal of Honor, Vietnam, and the War at Home. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. xii, 167 pp. Kenneth M. Kays was a conscientious objector serving as a medic with D Company, 1/506 Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, who won the Medal of Honor for heroism near FSB Maureen, Thua Thien province, 7 May 1970. He committed suicide in 1991.

Major General Spurgeon H. Neel, Jr., oral history interviews conducted 1985. 195 pp. plus appendices. Neel, an Army surgeon, served two one-year tours in Vietnam, beginning in July 1965 and July 1968. The text has been placed online in the Army Heritage Collection Online.

Elizabeth M. Norman, Women at War: The Story of Fifty Military Nurses who Served in Vietnam. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990. x, 211 pp.

Brendan O'Keefe with F. B. Smith, Medicine at War: Medical Aspects of Australia's Involvement in Southeast Asia 1950-1972. St Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1994. xxx, 505 pp. O'Keefe wrote the body of the volume; Smith wrote the essay of about 80 pages, "Agent Orange: the Australian aftermath", included in it.

Robert L. Ordóñez, When I Was a Boy: One Year in Vietnam. Lubbock, Texas: CIMA, 1997. 336 pp. Ordóñez was a platoon medical corpsman with the 3/1 Marines, 1st Marine Division, 1970-1971.

Joe Parnar and Robert Dumont, SOG Medic: Stories from Vietnam and Over the Fence. Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 2007. Parnar was a Special Forces medic who served at Command and Control Central (Kontum) and on recon teams, 1968-69.

John A. Parrish, M.D., 12, 20 & 5: A Doctor's Year in Vietnam. New York: Dutton, 1972. pb New York: Bantam, 1986.

John Peck, Navy Corpsmen in Vietnam: The Story of Doc John Peck. Baker Publishing Company, 2023. 275 pp. Significantly fictionalized.

Stephen Perry, Bright Light: Untold Stories of the Top Secret War in Vietnam. Booklocker.com, 2010. 148 pp. Perry was a Special Forces medical specialist who served with SOG.

Mary Reynolds Powell, A World of Hurt: Between Innocence and Arrogance in Vietnam. Cleveland: Greenleaf, 2000. xv, 171 pp. Powell was a nurse at the 24th Evac, Long Binh, 1970-71.

Craig Roberts, Combat Medic - Vietnam. New York: Pocket Books, 1991. xxvii, 232 pp. Based on interviews and documentary research. Note that while Roberts served in combat units he did not do so as a medic, and that some dialog is invented.

Charlie "Doc" Rose, Corpsman Up! BookSurge, 2007. 157 pp. Rose served as a Navy Corpsman with the Fleet Marine Force, 1966-67.

Mary Sue Rosenberger, Harmless as Doves: Witnessing for Peace in Vietnam. Eglin, IL: Brethren Press, 1988. 188 pp. By a volunteer nurse who worked in a hospital in Nha Trang from early 1966 to late 1967.

Gene Schulze, The Third Face of War. Austin: Pemberton Press, 1970. 294 pp.

Michael Shackleton, Operation Vietnam: A New Zealand Surgical First. Dunedin, New Zealand: University of Otago Press, 2004. 159 pp. Dr. Shackleton was in Vietnam 1963-1974.

Ben [Benjamin R.] Sherman, Medic! The Story of a Conscientious Objector in the Vietnam War. iUniverse, 2002. 280 pp. New York: Presidio Press/Ballantine Books (Random House), 2004. 288 pp. Sherman was drafted 1968, got in-service conscientious objector (I-AO) status early in 1969. He was trained as a medic. In Vietnam he was assigned to the 9th Infantry Division--initially to the morgue at Dong Tam, then to the barracks ship USS Nueces (APB-40), then with infantry units in the field. He was in Vietnam from April to July 1969.

Brady W. Slone, Purple Smoke. Pippa Passes, KY: Pippa Valley Printing, 1989. 109 pp. Slone was a medic with the Wolfhounds (either 1/27 or 2/27 Infantry).

Winnie Smith, American Daughter Gone to War: On the Front Lines with an Army Nurse in Vietnam. New York: Morrow, 1992. 352 pp. Smith served Sept. 1966 to Sept. 1967 in military hospitals in Saigon and Long Binh.

Richard L. Snider, Delta Six: Soldier, Surgeon. (Bowie, MD?): Heritage, 2003. 241 pp. Snider was a surgeon who served 1968-1969 at Cu Chi, Tay Ninh, and Saigon. He was with the 25th Infantry Division for part or all of that time.

Sir Sydney Sunderland, Australian Civlian Medical Aid to Viet-Nam. Canberra: Department of External Affairs, 1969. (38 pp.?)

Susan Terry, House of Love: Life in a Vietnamese Hospital. Melbourne: Lansdowne Press, 1967; London: Newnes, 1967. 248 pp. Sister Terry (the title denotes a senior nurse--she was not a Catholic nun) was a member of an Australian medical team sent to work in a hospital in Long Xuyen in 1964.

Robert J. Topmiller, Red Clay on My Boots: Encounters with Khe Sanh, 1968 to 2005. Kirk House, 2007. 208 pp. Topmiller was a Navy Corpsman at Khe Sanh in 1968.

Diane L. Trembly, Petticoat Medic in Vietnam: Adventures of a Woman Doctor. New York: Vantage, 1976.

James W. Turpin, with Al Hirshberg, Vietnam Doctor: The Story of Project Concern. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966. 210 pp.

Lynda Van Devanter, Home Before Morning (New York: Warner, 1984). Lynda Van Devanter was a U.S. Army nurse whose tour in Vietnam, June 1969 to June 1970, was served mostly at the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku province. A lot of heavy fighting, casualties. The account seems very good, but the resemblance to "M*A*S*H" is so strong as to inspire suspicions.

James G. Van Straten, A Different Face of War: Memories of a Medical Service Corps Officer in Vietnam. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2015. 576 pp. Van Straten was the senior medical adviser to the ARVN for I Corps from July 1966 to June 1967.

J. Craig Venter, A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life. New York: Viking, 2007. Deals mostly with Venter's career as a scientist, but includes on chapter on his year in Vietnam (Aug 67 to Aug 68) as a medical corpsman at a hospital in Danang.

Kara Dixon Vuic, Officer, Nurse, Woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. 304 pp. Based on the author's Ph.D. dissertation, History, Indiana University, 2006.

Kara Dixon Vuic, "'Officer. Nurse. Woman.:' Army Nurse Corps Recruitment for the Vietnam War," Nursing History Review 14 (2006), pp. 111-59.

Keith Walker, A Piece of My Heart: The Stories of Twenty Six American Women who Served in Vietnam. Novato: Presidio, 1985. x, 350 pp. Most of the women profiled were nurses.

Robert J. Wilensky, Military Medicine to Win Hearts and Minds: Aid to Civilians in the Vietnam War. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2004. xv, 207 pp. Wilensky was a battalion medical officer in Vietnam, 1967-68, but this is a history, not a memoir.

Dave Wilkie, Year of the Dove: Diaries of a Medico in Vietnam. Christchurch, New Zealand: Quoin, 1998. 352 pp.

Dr. Garry L. Willard, Into the Dragon's Jaws: A Canadian Combat Surgeon in the Vietnam War. Tellwell Talent, 2021. The Canadian Red Cross sent Willard to Vietnam in 1968. He was assigned to I Corps, attached to the 1/3 Marines.

Jean-Pierre Willem, Médecin au Viêt-Nam en feu. Paris: France-Empire, 1978. 366 pp.

There is a collection of about half a dozen oral histories of male nurses who served in Vietnam in the oral history collection at the main library of the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. They are not very long, but someone interested in gender issues might find some useful material.