Non­fic­tion

In the Sands of Sinai: A Physi­cian’s Account of the Yom Kip­pur War

  • From the Publisher
February 28, 2012
This book chron­i­cles the author’s trans­for­ma­tion from a civil­ian to a wartime doc­tor. In vivid per­son­al details, the author Itzhak Brook, a vet­er­an of both the Israeli Defense Forces and the Unit­ed States Navy, recounts his first expe­ri­ence in war. Far from a hero­ic ide­al, he describes his own doubt and mis­giv­ings of being a physi­cian fac­ing the dai­ly strug­gle of sur­vival in the Sinai bat­tle zone. Expect­ing to heal his sol­diers’ phys­i­cal com­bat wounds, Brook unex­pect­ed­ly must address his sol­diers’ psy­cho­log­i­cal bat­tle­field trau­ma. In unvar­nished details from the mun­dane to the cat­a­stroph­ic, he describes his per­spec­tive of a war that shaped his own life, and his nation’s frag­ile identity. 

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