Reviews for Rule Number Two: Lessons I Learned in a Combat Hospital

The average rating for Rule Number Two: Lessons I Learned in a Combat Hospital based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-01-15 00:00:00 John Barton Caveat: I rated the book 5 stars because I thought it was a poignant personal memoir of a young mom in a combat zone - not because I thought the writing was amazing or the storytelling especially great. I'd have liked to read a bit more about her professional perspective as a psychologist and the psychological toll that this particular war is taking on our warriors. I was a bit surprised by her retelling the bit about the suicidal Iraqi informer working with the SF who she only reluctantly spoke with and who later was killed - she seemed rather callous about this mans fate (a man who felt like he sold his soul to collaborate with the Americans). In any case, the reason I loved this book is because it resonated with me as a simple memoir - likely a strung together set of entries from a personal diary - not an amazing piece of literature. As a young mother's modern war memoir, this is a great book. As an insightful peek into the psychological effects this war has had / is having on a generation of marines, soldiers, and Iraqis - not so much. While Heidi Squire Kraft's tale of her experience with the Marines in Al Anbar province (she was a Navy Psychologist and young mother of 15 month old twins when she was deployed) is at once gratuitously personal - which I usually find a bit cheesy - I quickly got over it because of the power of her narrative. She taps directly into the emotional punch of telling first hand the emotional trauma of war and of the tenacity and fragility of "her Marines." I couldn't put this book down until I'd finished it! It's not a glorious war memoir about subduing the bad guys but, a genuine and heart-wrenching account of the real life results of modern combat, that she and her brother and sister Naval Medical Providers encountered at her field surgical unit each day and night as those Iconic young men of our Marine Corps returned from the horrors of their dirty job in Al Anbar province Iraq in 2004. It's also a genuine and completely real peek into the personal emotions of a young mother and American Hero who walked away from her family - her babies - to do her part in the people's dirty work we call the Iraq war. We've all been exposed to the amazing and heroic young men who've given so much during this conflict, here's a story that relates the story from the perspective of a young mother who answered the same call. Semper Fi Heidi! Full Disclosure: I'm an Army Reserve Medical Service Corps Officer who has done a tour "over there" and understands the perspective of leaving a young family here and going over there to do a job that involes supporting the medical care of warriors in combat.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-08-24 00:00:00 Caitee Vallee Okay. Rarely do I read other people's reviews of a book that I liked and get annoyed that they didn't like it as much as me. Mostly I just think they're probably dumb. Not really, I'm just kidding. Everybody has different tastes. But I just read some of the reviews on here that didn't like this book, and I kind of want to punch them in the nose. Like the dude down here who says the book annoyed him because some commanders were concerned and grief stricken over a soldier who had a non fatal wound, and were pacing outside the hospital door worried about him rather than out fighting a war. Like, WHAT?! Do some people really have no appreciation at all for what soldiers go through at war? OH MY HECK. (I sensored that last sentence not to have swear words, in case people I go to church with read this. But what I was thinking in my head was way more PG 13 rated.) Anyway, I got sidetracked. This is a book written by a woman (mom of twin 14 month old babies at the time of deployment) who served in Iraq as part of a combat stress team. She was basically a shrink, helping soldiers dealing with emotional and mental distress. I loved this book. At first I thought she wasn't going to be in the thick of things, but when you're the one in charge of mental health of soldiers, all you do is work with soldiers who have been injured, who have had their buddies die in front of them, or who work in the mortuary cleaning dead soldier's bodies and inventoring their personal items to send home to their families. Can you imagine that last job? Can you even imagine your full time job (when none of these soldiers are morticians in regular life, or had ever done this sort of thing before) being to process the dead bodies of soldiers? Pulling an ultrasound picture from their pockets, knowing they were going to be a dad soon and that a young pregnant wife is getting the news that day? I cannot even fathom. But someone has to do it. And despite the fact that this author spent her time on the base (as opposed to out in combat), she was at a combat hospital. Soldiers were coming in bleeding and blown apart, and bodies were brought in in pieces. Rockets would explode nearby. She saw a lot of blood, and held the hands of soldiers as they were dying. This was not a wimpy deployment by any means. I read a book earlier this year about the battle in Sadr City on Black Sunday, but (despite being authored by a woman) it felt to me like it was all from a young male soldier's perspective. This was all from a young mother's perspective. My husband is on his second deployment, and he's in Iraq right now. I am just married to a soldier rather than being one, but I felt a connection to her somehow. I thought this was an excellent, awesome book. I cried. I appreciated her and so many of the soldiers who have gone over there. Weirdly enough, while my husband missed the entire first year of our oldest baby (and missed the birth), and left a 4 and 2 year old for a year again this time, it doesn't seem as bad to me as a mom leaving her kids for only seven months (like this author did). It reminds me of another female soldier from my husband's unit who left her first born child, only six weeks old, to serve a 15 month deployment. Moms leaving their little babies just tears my heart out, but somehow having dads leave seems more manageable. Maybe I'm not being fair to dads. Maybe it's just as awful, but I feel for the moms who leave. I agree with this author's decision to get out of the military after the deployment in this book. Whereever the heck Dr. Heidi Kraft lives, she is welcome to come hang out with me if she is ever in Utah. So if you're reading the reviews of your book on here Heidi, you have a friend. And I'll agree with you that the dude who wrote the review on here about the officers being worried about the injured soldier being stupid is being dumb himself. Dang it. Nobody's ever clicked that they "like" his review. What a shock. We want a "you're dumb" button, please. I'll email goodreads about it when I have a minute.