SOG Medic: Stories from Vietnam and Over the Fence
By: Joe Parnar, Robert Dumont / Narrated By: Arthur Flavell
Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
Light on action; heavy on experiences that haunt… for a lifetime
There’s this thing I reeeally wanna do with my Life, here in my Second Act, now that I’m soooo done working with kids with disabilities (you know, since teen-aged girls this past 15 out of 33-years has me BURNT. OUT!!!).
I’ve trained to be an End of Life Doula, am working on the Doula Specialist so that I might be, not just End of Life, but Through to End of Life (Yay, Elder Care Specialist!). It’s cuz, see, I see m’ beloved Vietnam Veterans, am doing the NHPCO We Honor Veterans coursework where it’s painfully obvious that their particular roads nearing end of life are just, well, fraught!, and I totally wish to repay a debt of gratitude to them for seeing what they went through (As I was a kidlet watching the news) and realizing if they could get through THAT, why then I most certainly can get through my own THIS at the time.
I say this as an intro to SOG Medic because author Joe Parnar is My Type O’ Veteran: An individual who believed and took to heart the words of JFK (“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country”), plus he saw what fathers and grandfathers did for their descendants in fighting TWO World Wars. As a college student, he saw his quibbling and demonstrative generation as spoiled; he saw the US involvement in Vietnam as a just use of power in keeping the world safe from Communism (Okay, p’raps here at my own great age, with a good dose of 20/20 Hindsight, m’ own beliefs are a weeee bit different); and he responded to callous comments such as, “You believe in it so much–YOU go join up and fight”.
He did.
And in an oh so roundabout way, intent on getting to Vietnam, he wound up as a Medic for the SOG (Studies and Observations Group), fighters and recon soldiers ensconced firmly in Laos and Cambodia… beYONd Hush Hush. His college work? Well, why don’t you study to be a Medic as all your studies lean toward that?
Not only did Parnar become a SOG Medic, but he had to learn to fight as well; no such things as a fringe observer–His life depended on his rifle.
After brutal firefights–Parnar was seeing to the wounded.
Downtime–Parnar was seeing to the wounded.
Sleeping from exhaustion–Parnar was seeing to the wounded.
Firefights and ambushes–Parnar was wounded himself… and seeing to the wounded.
SOG Medic might not be the most exciting account to come out of the Vietnam War, but it’s beyond a shadow of a doubt a truly compelling story. There are some accounts of action, plenty of brutality experienced, witnessed, dealt with as well as any individual could in the situation, but mostly this is the story of Parnar’s stint as a volunteer in Vietnam.
And by the time his time was getting short?
Others volunteered again, knowing Life had changed for them, completely, unutterably.
But Parnar was Done; he knew things were NOT going to get any better for him, he’d heard, by this time, of the KIAs, the MIAs of sooo many comrades, and his ticket could come up at any time. And along the way, some of the guilt he experienced over Not Being Able to Save individuals, of maybe feeling that he’d been the direct cause of deaths here and there (The saddest one was where he’d been drawn to a downed fireball of a chopper, and he ran TOWARDS the flames, hoping to save, only to discover that nobody survived, and his mission was basically of saving charred and burnt corpses; bad enough, but when a fellow service member was wounded from shrapnel from ammo being cooked off, and died)?
Guilt, my friend.
And how does one live with that?
Arthur Flavell as narrator was new to me for this audiobook, and at first I thought he sounded a little bit too old for the narrative. But I was wrong; this is of a man looking back, a man who’s spent a lifetime processing experiences no person should ever have had to experience. And it’s a story told way after the fact, when Operations in Laos and Cambodia have become common knowledge. So no, Flavell doesn’t sound like a swaggering young buccaneer; but yes, he does sound like a man coming to terms with himself after years of pain, after years of learning how to deal with all the adrenaline that coursed through his body so very often, after dealing with nightmares and loss. Not sure that I’d RUN, RUN QUICKLY to the next audiobook narrated by him but for this, the memories of a man who did what he could to save lives, tend multitudes of wounded, worked with indigenous fighters, treated civilians, and most definitely lost good good friends? Done very well, sir, so bravo. EsPECially the bits and pieces of a Parnar who just kinda sorta canNOT quite get away from the extra beer here and there (Or the extra three, four, five, six…). Parnar was just a kid, really!
Usually, as I get in touch with the realities that Veterans have faced, I take the stories so very much to heart, to the point where I dream about the individual’s experiences, wake up exhausted but like I’m closer to the point where I might be able to relate in a better manner. That didn’t happen to me this time, but…
It certainly educated me; it made me sad;
It made me so very proud of Veterans, from the Past, Current men and women who serve.
Bravo; Brava.
My thanks
…most certainly…
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