Brent Ramsey
An inspirational and at the same time troubling account of an American warrior and healer at war in Iraq and Afghanistan who returns from multiple tours in combat to find war of a different and even more troubling nature at home. Dr. John Hughes’ personal history and family heritage is awe inspiring, fascinating, exciting, and humbling to behold. His story is also most troubling for anyone that values freedom and the traditional values that made this country great.
Number one in his class at West Point, an Infantryman, a Ranger, and combat zone veteran who then goes to medical school and becomes a doctor and then goes straight back into combat as an ER doc and Flight surgeon. Dr. Hughes pulls no punches in describing the horrors of war for everyone in the combat zone and in graphic detail the even worse horrors of a combat ER doc dealing with the horrendous injuries inflicted on our military personnel and the civilian populace including children by the criminal atrocities of the aggressors in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
His is an account of tremendous motivation and desire to serve, mind-numbing challenge and danger in every conceivable situation, and an iron will to persevere and overcome to save as many lives as possible. As if it is not enough to be in combat with harrowing dangers day in and day out, month after month, with growing experience and perception being refined over time, to come to the realization that he is caught up in a losing proposition concerning the overall objectives of our nation. On the one hand he is rewarded and gratified to be saving lives on an almost daily basis and improving and refining procedures with innovative techniques and sure dint of effort and at his own expense at times. But, on the other hand he, with time, experience, and dawning understanding, reaches the conclusion that US strategy in both Iraq and Afghanistan is failing. And, that denial of that failure will be a stain on the nation that will last for all time. And, despite his best efforts there is not a thing he can do about it. His warnings and inputs to those more senior to him in the chain of command are ignored.
Once inspired. his very core. the history, cure, and ethos of West Point over generations including multiple generations of his own family, he gradually recognizes that senior leadership has blinders on and an institution that once produced great military leaders now mostly produces politically motivated yes men who let their personal ambitions keep them from telling politicians the truth about failing policy. Despite his inspiring family heritage with the Army and his unusual motivation to serve, his once bright spirit is damaged over time by the realization that nothing he says or does can make any real difference to our failing policy overseas. After 23 years in uniform, he resigns his commission as a LTC without benefits or any reward for his extraordinary sacrifices of his family life and even more extraordinary benefits to his fellow soldiers.
Dr. Hughes enters private practice as an ER doctor and for several years practices medicine and raises his family trying to enjoy the life he has earned. There are many challenges due to having a severely disabled child and adopting two other children from the local area with severe developmental problems so for some years he focuses solely on his family and solidifying his private medical career. Having settled in San Antonio he has become an avid Spurs fan. Then comes the shocking events with Chinese aggression towards Hong Kong and his political senses are put onto alert. It is with disbelief he watches as the National Basketball Association and some of its most prominent players including filthy rich Lebron James, degrade themselves in front of the entire nation by cozying up to the Communist regime in Beijing for the love of money. Their greed and love of money indicates that the NBA is fine with abandoning the free people of Hong Kong to a hostile takeover. Dr. Hughes’ disgust is so great he cancels his season tickets and abandons following the sport he loves.
With his radar now fully activated to be more focused on political matters, he researches the happenings at his alma mater, West Point and looks more closely at what is going on with the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and he does not like what he sees. What he sees is politics invading the military and the medical establishments in destructive ways and he becomes an activist for traditional constitutional and Hippocratic oath values. The past 3 years have been constructive but insistent criticism of West Point, AMA and ACEP. He points out bluntly that they are becoming increasingly political through the promotion of Critical Race Theory and other far left ideologies.
Dr. Hughes’s book is filled with inspiring things and troubling things. He is an inspiration in the way he has lived his life and sacrificed so much for his country. And it is a cautionary tale about our freedoms of expression being eroded away by political influences that have become entrenched into the military and the medical establishments. It is time to wake up America and take heed of what this highly decorated and inspirational life saving Doctor has to say about the state of military senior leadership and the erosion of medical freedoms in our nation.
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