Customer Reviews

The Medic: Life and Death in the Last Days of World War II

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Nearly half a century after he had served as a medic in the United States Army during World War II, Leo Litwak's "The Medic" attempts to place a sense of understanding and finality to his experiences tending the wounded and struggling for his own survival during the final days of that war. Direct, hard-hitting and uncompromising in its sober portrait of American men at war, "The Medic" should serve as a capable antidote to a false romanticization of our GI Joes who fought against Nazi atrocities. Ironically, the liberating American Army of Leo Litwak realistically is composed of amoral, conniving and bigoted soldiers who know how to fight and also how to enrich themselves from the people they supposedly are liberating and conquering.

Litwak's anticipation of fighting the Nazis, after all, was tinctured by the Holocaust; he deeply sensed the enormity of the scale of the destruction of European Jewry. His decent and left-leaning immigrant parents escaped history, and Leo's collegiate career proved apparent vindication of the open nature of American society. The collegiate Litwak appreciated philosophy and complexity; the seasoned veteran Litwak learned that simplicity is illusory. By war's end, Litwak "wanted to strip away any evidence of war...I wanted everything to be simple."

Perhaps the single most memorable character of Litwak's experience is the amoral Maurice, a talented, venal and brutal man, whose voracious appetite for violence, riches and women know no limits. Maurice's violence cuts a wide swath; as a victor, he genuinely believes in his own omnipotence. Quietly moral and bound to the medic's code of bearing no arms and tending to all (including the enemy) who may be injured, Litwak feels both a deep sense of repugnance and begrudged admiration at Maurice's example.

Almost immediately, Litwak develops a callousness towards death and an impersonal outlook on the afflicted as a survival technique. Despite a feigned imperviousness to disappointment, he encounters American soldiers so racist, so perverse as to warrant his silent reprobation. One such soldier is Roy, a cold-hearted killer whose blood thirst and drive for retribution to the Germans is so deep that even Litwak is repelled by him. A Southern farmer by occupation, Roy sense's Litwak's ambivalence. After Litwak balks at Roy's desire to inflict immediate revenge, Roy criticizes Leo's reticence: "You, Doc, a Jew, are too softhearted to operate in this world. You need coldhearted sons of bitches like me to keep things straight in this world."

A different sort of soldier, however, is Frank. Openly egalitarian and brazenly proud of his leftist politics, Frank challenges the Americans to live up to their professed war aims. He constantly reproaches Leo for failing to take stands for his beliefs. Litwak comments, "Frank was mistaken if he imagined most GIs were out to change the world...They wanted to the world to stay put...GIs wanted their service to pay off with gorgeous women, good jobs, more money, secure families, with nothing else changed."

Litwak knows that the world has changed. The sheer scope of the conflict, the unspeakable horrors engendered by the Holocaust and the necessary moral refocusing each soldier enacted in order to survive made the prewar world obsolete. "The Medic" reminds the contemporary reader that the so-called "greatest generation" paid far more than we may realize in defeating its enemies.

The theme of this book and it source of tension is the conflict between (in combat) our need to survive and our need and ability to feel. There is no resolution nor should there be and this is the truth and reward of this book

I was disappointed in this book. Maybe I went into it with too high an expectation. I knew going in, it was a dramatized version of Mr. Litwak's experiences but I expected more insight into his job as a medic. there were relatively few scenes of his actually work. In that way, I would say the title is misleading. It really is a book of one man's army service in Europe during the later days of World War II. He seems to have disliked everyone he served with and Mr. Litwak has the right to be. there were more sex stories than medic stories. the Sgt. Lucca story I thought would help me gain more insight into the author. But it left me looking for more of an explanation of how Mr. Litwak really felt. Did he like the Sgt. or not? He seems to have been hurt by his death but I am not sure.
Thebook overall does help one experience WWII from a more realistic standpoint. But a non-fiction approach would have been more of a contribution.

Leo Litwak's recollections of his service in WWII as a combat medic is not what I had expected. I had anticipated a memoir - instead the book is essentially a collection of vignettes and impressions the author had during his service in Europe in the final year of the war. Litwak admits in his foreward that unit names and places had been changed, and that some individuals mentioned in the book were composites of personalities he knew. I appreciated his honesty.

After reading the book, I also appreciated his honesty in presenting his perspective on the war. The graft and looting by "our boys." The whoring around. The detached neutrality of working on the wounded, and the non-chalance of seeing so much death so often. Not everyone who served in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) saw combat; and not everyone who saw combat in the ETO was there from the Normandy landing to V-E day. Litwak was honest about his service, his experiences, and his impressions.

As a combat medic from a later war, I had anticipated experiences and recollections similar to my own. While we had some experiences in common, we had many more differences as we served in two very different times. Nonetheless, the honesty with which Litwak writes of his time in Europe is not a romanticized or sanitized version of WWII. And aside from the obvilious shortcomings of his composites, it is real at an emotional (if not strictly historical) level.

Worth a dozen "Saving Private Ryan"s. The real deal: fear, terror, comradeship, heroism and corruption. This is a short, moving masterpiece. Those who think it is too emotionally distanced just don't get the point of the book and the author's experience -- re-read the first few pages where he talks about repressing all his WWII memories for over 20 years and then having them come flooding back. You will read this book in one sitting and understand war in a new and better way. Take it from one who knows (Vietnam 1968-69 service).

I was expecting a more in-depth analysis into the combat and mental condition of a medic, but what I got was a long drawn out story of himself. There was no connection w/ his fellow men and if there was, it was just a misconception. Basically, he just want to forget about the war, the horror, and the cruelty behind it. If that is the case, then why write the book.

Perhaps it is the distance of a half century that allowed Mr. Litwak to avoid the heroic stereotypes that are common in many recollections of war.

For me, some of the most emotional moments of this book are the author's descriptions of wretching events told in the dispassionate voice of the combat medic. I felt I could understand the impact that the dangers and brutality of the war had upon the ordinary soldier.

In balance to the narrative of the young medic, there are the amazingly honest memories of the author looking back at the war: the deep comradeship of his unit; the loss of his platoon sergeant; the poignantly unreal romance in Paris.

Over the past couple of years, I have read numerous histories and biographies related to World War II. None of the others brought me as close to the lives of combat troops as Mr. Litwak's honest little memoir.

Memoirs of a Detroit born, Jewish 18 year old who enters the army for three years and sees action in Europe, Belgium, France and Germany in the last months of WWII as a medic. After finishing a year at University of Michigan, Leo is sent to South Carolina where, like most every other Jewish draftee and recruit, he is called a College Boy, Kike, and An Inside-Out Nigger by his welcoming bunkmates in basic training. Throughout his 13 chapters of memoirs, he shows that war is awful and evil on both sides. Horniness on both sides leads to stupid choices during leaves and the occupation of German towns. Litwak bonds with many in his platoon and puts up with the others who in a different world should be jailed. Like any WWII Hollywood film, his platoon consists of many diverse post adolescent men who must band together to stay alive. There are the southerners who are segregationists, there is the New Yorker Commie Red who served in The Lincoln Brigade against Spanish Fascists; there is the soldier who loots civilians and corpses, the extremely pragmatic teenage Dutch survivor who deals in the black market, and the farm boy who executes and butchers captured or surrendered German SS and Wehrmacht soldiers. One second, Leo is speaking with two friends, the next second screaming meemee's have ripped off their leg or intestines in his trench. They both die en route to a division hospital. When they liberate some Jewish women who served as comfort women to German soldiers, they hold a seder, and Litwak, who never attended a seder as a youth in Detroit is enlisted to help in the ceremony. I was a little irritated when I learned that some incidences were dramatized, since it detracts from knowing the truth, but on the whole, this is a great read and honest portrait of wartime.

"'Aid Man!' ... He ran up to me. He shouted in my face. 'Aid Man!' He grabbed my shoulders, his mouth agape, heaving air. 'A man got his leg blowed off. Let's go!'" This was Leo Litwak's first shot of many to come at saving a life. Leo was a young Jewish boy being trained as a medic in South Carolina. It was February of 1943, and, sooner than he would have preferred, Leo would be immersed in World War II. This is a true story and an excellent one as well. Leo Litwak does a wonderful job telling the truth in this book leaving no goury details out. His book shows all aspects of the war. He shows the soft side, dark side, romantic side, and even the surprising side. Gloria Emerson from the Los Angeles Times states, "[This is a] book that should be given to every schoolboy in the country at the age of thirteen." I must agree with this statement because all the reality and accuracy in this book will inform them that there's not always a happy ending and that war is nothing like Hollywood.

The Medic is a GI's story of war and a first rate book. For those seeking a how to book on how to turn a tourniquet, this is not the book. Mr. Litwak describes human frailties and moral dilemma. His experiences are not pretty; there is no glory to war or nobility to warfare. The Medic is a tale of young American guys growing up as soldiers in a foreign land at war. They were certainly on the right side of history but not always on the right side in their decision making. Having led young men in situations of stress and survival myself, I found Mr. Litwak's portrayals clear and poignant. They rang true. For the soldier the noble path was often unclear. Young men, far from home and in the midst of a battle had little guidance. Choosing right from wrong was a struggle for all and Mr. Litwak forcefully describes this with great courage and insight, as the medic is certainly not a romanticized hero. The book is well structured and paced beautifully, climaxing in what I found to be an emotionally powerful and gripping chapter. I commend Mr. Litwak for his honesty and courage; it is hard to find a hero among these soldiers, even the medic. All are corrupted by war, albeit a war against the evil Nazis.