Battle Ready

December 24, 2012
After humbly eschewing the “haunting label” of “hero,” Donald, with the help of Navy vet Mactavish (The New Dad’s Survival Guide), recounts his struggle to break free from an impoverished youth by joining the Marines and then the elite Navy SEALs, in whose service he fought and saved lives as a medic in Afghanistan. That experience left him with PTSD and an enduring desire to help veterans. Like most soldiers, he writes best about soldiering (the book is based on journals originally intended as part of his post-combat therapy), delivering a superb description of the infamously brutal weeding-out ordeal of SEAL training, the nuts-and-bolts duties of a medic, and the battle actions that won him the Navy Cross but claimed the lives of more than one close friend. Attempts to exorcise his personal demons back on the home front are less successful, but the suffering they point to is palpable. A few military memoirs—like Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead—gloriously break the bonds of their genre; Donald’s has no such ambition, but this is an admirable addition to the flourishing phenomenon of SEALs sharing their stories in print. Its audience will welcome the familiar macho elements no less than the original, often horrific medical details. 16-page color photo insert.

March 1, 2013
Life story of a warrior with an unusual dual specialty--Navy SEAL and combat medic--told with plainspoken stoicism. In this book co-authored by Mactavish, Donald examines his rarefied position in the pantheon of Special Forces veterans: "the highest decorated Medical Service Corps officer in the history of the Navy and the first medical officer of any corps...to receive a Navy Cross since Vietnam." Yet, by the end of this sprawling memoir, his feelings about his expansive battlefield experience are decidedly ambivalent: "War is not an esoteric chess game...I no longer believed the answer required an army on foreign soil." Unlike other recent SEAL memoirs, Donald does not go into detail about his upbringing, early service as an elite Reconnaissance Marine, or the crucible of SEAL training and its notorious "Hell Week." Instead, after his first combat experience on a SEAL team in the 1991 Iraq War, he explains his gradual transition into practicing as a medic. He attended the Navy's elite physician assistant program--even as his first marriage dissolved and he dealt with the emotional aftershocks from combat, both of which he terms common among Special Forces operators. The book's centerpiece is a harrowingly told account of an extended battle with Afghan insurgents, for which he received the Navy Cross, a distinction about which he feels deep misgivings, having lost two comrades there. In the concluding chapters, Donald describes his decision to retire, coming to terms with the grueling experience of combat and his wish to keep working with SF veterans through advocacy groups. The narrative is rambling at points, and some of the noncombat interactions feel stagey, but this memoir raises hard questions about the toll American policy takes on its professional warrior class. Straightforward reflections on what it takes to be the most elite sort of soldier and the hidden costs of that life.

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October 1, 2012

Having completed BUD/S training and served in the SEALs, Lieutenant Donald was chosen for the Intra-service Physician Assistant Program and after 9/11 became operational medical support to Special Operations. Here this young Hispanic (and Navy Cross honoree) recounts lifting himself out of poverty by joining the military and then finding himself tasked with both killing and healing.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2013
Donald's service with the SEALs was as a medic, which meant not only passing through the formidable barrier of basic and advanced SEAL training but also learning to deal with serious, even life-threatening wounds and diseases under exceptionally demanding conditions. And what is also required is being able to fight, one can only say, like a SEAL, to complete the mission and defend not only wounded teammates but also casualties among allied military personnel and friendly or even unfriendly civilians. A SEAL team medic on a mission has one of the most demanding jobs, even in the special operations community, and this book will enlighten students of those warriors who go well beyond the limits of what is expected of most of their comrades.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)