WOUNDED IN ACTION
When people speak of the casualties of war, they usually refer to those servicemen and servicewomen who died during the war. But in order to have a more complete picture of the devastation the war caused the military, the casualty figure should also include those who are wounded in action. Although they didn’t make the ultimate sacrifice and lost their lives, the severely wounded must, however, continue to sacrifice each and every day for the rest of their lives. While soldiers are trained on how to fight a war, they receive no training at all on how to survive the crippling effects—both mental and physical—caused by being severely wounded. Each soldier must find his own way to survive, for if he doesn’t, he will perish as surely as if he’s killed on the battlefield.
That’s why the author puts his pen to paper to share this gripping story—his very own story—of survival in its most primitive form. Highly trained army ranger and leader of an elite long-range reconnaissance team, the author, Sergeant Thomas Robison, takes readers on a perilous journey from the enemy-infested jungles and rice paddies of South Vietnam to the sterile operating rooms of military and veterans’ hospitals. Struggling to survive while those around him succumb to their wounds, he is given less than twenty-four hours to live: his kidneys shut down from too many whole-blood transfusions; his heart ceases to beat due to the trauma of enduring more than a dozen operations; his body is plagued by raging infections and half of his body weight is lost; his one remaining leg is about to be amputated to save his life. How can and where will he find the strength to go on?
Wounded in Action is the author’s emotionally gripping story of survival and determination that could only be told by someone who had to live it day by day and minute by minute.