Published: 1 December 2008
Air & Space Power Journal - Winter 2008
On Call in Hell: A Doctor’s Iraq War Story by Cdr Richard Jadick with
Thomas Hayden. New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (http://us.penguingroup.com),
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, 2007, 288 pages, $24.95
(hardcover).
I first heard about Cdr Richard Jadick’s story in the 20 March 2006 issue of Newsweek, so when he wrote a book about his experience with the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment (1/8) in Fallujah, Iraq, I just had to buy it. I read On Call in Hell in one day and enjoyed it from beginning to end. My reactions ran the gamut from laughing to crying as Jadick and Thomas Hayden describe Jadick’s experiences as a battalion surgeon during the battle for Fallujah in November 2004 and how he got to that point in his life.
The book begins on the day that marines kicked off Operation Phantom Fury to clear the city of insurgents. A call came in to pick up a wounded force-reconnaissance corpsman who had been shot near the city’s cultural center, so Jadick jumped into a Humvee driven by Lt Matthew Kutilek, leader of 3d Platoon, Weapons Company. “I couldn’t go in alone, but I didn’t want to send the Marines in alone either—and although he looked bewildered at first, he shrugged and accepted that I was going along for the ride. I could have sent in a senior corpsman, but I didn’t want to do that either. For one thing, a leader has to be willing to take the same risks he’s asking his men to take. And although I had trained my corpsmen well, I had seen sucking chest wounds before and they hadn’t. I figured I would be in and out in 15 minutes” (pp. 15–16). This run marked the beginning of a harrowing and emotional journey for Jadick and his 54 Navy corpsmen.
Just as the narrative pulled me into the upcoming battle, so did it take me back to how Jadick became involved with the military in the first place. Although he lost an appointment to West Point because of a wandering right eye, he received an ROTC scholarship from the Marine Corps to attend college, spending 10 years in communications before leaving the Corps to enter medical school.
Jadick tells how he and his assistant battalion surgeon at his first assignment developed the concept of the forward aid station, which brings medical attention to the wounded at or near the front lines. Jadick took this idea with him to his next assignment where he sold it to the senior enlisted man in his new organization, who helped Jadick “hone the leadership and requisitioning skills [he] would need to put it into action in Iraq, and [they] worked together on figuring out how to really make it a part of battalion combat medicine” (p. 82).
Finally, the book explains why Jadick’s concern about evacuating wounded marines made him think about putting his concept into practice. According to his account, operational plans had considered actual combat but not how to treat and move the wounded. “I couldn’t trust my guys to a system I didn’t understand, a system that might or might not be able to guarantee that they get the very best care we could possibly provide. There was no way I was going to be okay with that, for the sake of my Marines, and honestly, for the sake of professional and military pride as well. I had done too much and come too far, and so had my Marines, to put up with a haphazard, notional approach to casualty evacuation” (p. 147).
Near the end of the book, the authors return the reader to the battle in Fallujah. The narration details how Jadick brings medical care to wounded marines. “I couldn’t control who got hit or where, but I still had my sphere of influence, and I decided that if it was taking too long to get the wounded out of the city, then the only way we could cut that travel time down was by moving ourselves in. That would mean, in effect, setting up an emergency room in the middle of the hot zone” (p. 162). To do that, Jadick sought and received permission from his chain of command to set up the forward aid station in Fallujah.
The 1/8 pulled out of Fallujah in December 2004, along with Jadick and the corpsmen who worked with him. In January 2006, Jadick accepted the Bronze Star with “V” device for valor—to that date, the only doctor in Iraq to earn that combination. Jadick was credited with saving the lives of 30 marines who might have died had he and his corpsmen not followed them into the fight.
Well written, On Call in Hell is certainly worth reading. One caveat: readers averse to coarse language should be advised that the book does contain some profanity.
MSgt Kelley Stewart, USAF
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
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