About the Author

Henry Ward Trueblood M.D. grew up in Indianola, Iowa, where his father was the town doctor. By the age of ten he was regularly making house calls with his father. Trueblood graduated from Stanford Medical School in 1964 and served in the U.S. Navy as a surgeon in Vietnam in 1965-66. An award-winning faculty member at Stanford, he continues to teach third-year medical students and serve as Trauma Attending at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, a Level One Trauma Center. Trueblood's wife Nancy is in private practice as a psychotherapist. They have two children and five grandchildren.

Reviews

"Trueblood's memoir transports us into the pathos, the courage, and the desolation of a tragic war." -Irvin D. Yalom, bestselling author of When Nietzsche Wept "A Surgeon's War offers an indispensible view of combat medicine in the Vietnam War. It is also the beautifully written story of a young man coming of age in the crucible of conflict. We follow the young Ward Trueblood from the protected, Eisenhower-era life of a small town in the Midwest, to heady and idealistic days as a graduate student at Stanford, to the war, and finally to his adulthood as a leading figure in trauma medicine. From his reflections on his father's experience as a combat surgeon in World War II, to his own assessments of the evolution of trauma care and of the American conscience, Ward's story is the story of America in the 20th Century." -Jason Brown, author of Why The Devil Chose New England for His Work and Driving the Heart and Other Stories "Trueblood has an uncommon gift for getting at the heart of the matter. He reveals a profound story of coming into his own as a man and a surgeon under fire." -Keith Scribner, author of The Oregon Experiment, The Good Life, and Miracle Girl "A much needed personal perspective on an incredibly tragic event that defined a generation. We all will grow along with this young surgeon's story." -Hans Steiner, M.D. Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, Stanford University, School of Medicine