Crossings: A Doctor-soldier's Story
by Jon Kerstetter /
2017 / English / EPUB
1.4 MB Download
Every juncture in Jon Kerstetter’s life has been marked by a
crossing from one world into another: from civilian to doctor to
soldier; between healing and waging war; and between compassion and
hatred of the enemy. When an injury led to a stroke that ended his
careers as a doctor and a soldier, he faced the most difficult
crossing of all, a recovery that proved as shattering as war
itself.
Every juncture in Jon Kerstetter’s life has been marked by a
crossing from one world into another: from civilian to doctor to
soldier; between healing and waging war; and between compassion and
hatred of the enemy. When an injury led to a stroke that ended his
careers as a doctor and a soldier, he faced the most difficult
crossing of all, a recovery that proved as shattering as war
itself.Crossings
Crossings is a memoir of an improbable, powerfully drawn
life, one that began in poverty on the Oneida Reservation in
Wisconsin but grew by force of will to encompass a remarkable
medical practice. Trained as an emergency physician, Kerstetter’s
thirst for intensity led him to volunteer in war-torn Rwanda,
Kosovo, and Bosnia, and to join the Army National Guard. His three
tours in the Iraq War marked the height of the American struggle
there. The story of his work in theater, which involved everything
from saving soldiers’ lives to organizing the joint U.S.–Iraqi
forensics team tasked with identifying the bodies of Saddam
Hussein’s sons, is a bracing, unprecedented evocation of a doctor’s
life at war.
is a memoir of an improbable, powerfully drawn
life, one that began in poverty on the Oneida Reservation in
Wisconsin but grew by force of will to encompass a remarkable
medical practice. Trained as an emergency physician, Kerstetter’s
thirst for intensity led him to volunteer in war-torn Rwanda,
Kosovo, and Bosnia, and to join the Army National Guard. His three
tours in the Iraq War marked the height of the American struggle
there. The story of his work in theater, which involved everything
from saving soldiers’ lives to organizing the joint U.S.–Iraqi
forensics team tasked with identifying the bodies of Saddam
Hussein’s sons, is a bracing, unprecedented evocation of a doctor’s
life at war.
But war was only the start of Kerstetter’s struggle. The stroke he
suffered upon returning from Iraq led to serious cognitive and
physical disabilities. His years-long recovery, impeded by
near-unbearable pain and complicated by PTSD, meant overcoming the
perceived limits of his body and mind and re‑‑ imagining his own
capacity for renewal and change. It led him not only to writing as
a vocation but to a deeper understanding of how healing means
accepting a new identity, and how that acceptance must be fought
for with as much tenacity as any battlefield victory.
But war was only the start of Kerstetter’s struggle. The stroke he
suffered upon returning from Iraq led to serious cognitive and
physical disabilities. His years-long recovery, impeded by
near-unbearable pain and complicated by PTSD, meant overcoming the
perceived limits of his body and mind and re‑‑ imagining his own
capacity for renewal and change. It led him not only to writing as
a vocation but to a deeper understanding of how healing means
accepting a new identity, and how that acceptance must be fought
for with as much tenacity as any battlefield victory.