Mass Casualties
Joining the Army at 17, the author went in with high hopes and sterling ideals; coming from a family with a proud military background. What he discovered was a disenchanting web of mundane corruption and self-serving lies. Unlike accounts exposing the military's most shameful iniquities, the author's memoir focuses on an endless parade of petty offenses- the cowardice, drug addiction, thievery, adultery and rampant hypocrisy- he found while working in a base hospital. Relentlessly honest and reflective, the author communicates perfectly the stranglehold of sadness, fear and disappointment that came with his lost innocence; just as worse is his eventual acceptance of the pointless, dysfunctional bureaucracy maintaining the status quo.
