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No Place to Hide: A Brain Surgeon’s Long Journey Home from the Iraq War
No Place to Hide: A Brain Surgeon’s Long Journey Home from the Iraq War
No Place to Hide: A Brain Surgeon’s Long Journey Home from the Iraq War
Audiobook9 hours

No Place to Hide: A Brain Surgeon’s Long Journey Home from the Iraq War

Written by W. Lee Warren

Narrated by Chip Arnold and Henry O. Arnold

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

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About this audiobook

Join Air Force veteran Dr. W. Lee Warren as he chronicles his fascinating, heartbreaking, and enlightening experience as a neurosurgeon in an Iraq War combat hospital.

Warren's life as a neurosurgeon in a trauma center began to unravel long before he shipped off to serve the U.S. Air Force in Iraq in 2004. When he traded a comfortable, if demanding, practice in San Antonio, Texas, for a ride on a C-130 into the combat zone, he was already reeling from months of personal struggle.

At the 332nd Air Force Theater Hospital at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, Warren realized his experience with trauma was just beginning. In his 120 days in a tent hospital, he was trained in a different specialty--surviving over a hundred mortar attacks and trying desperately to repair the damages of a war that raged around every detail of every day. No place was safe, and the constant barrage wore down every possible defense, physical or psychological.

One day, clad only in a T-shirt, gym shorts, and running shoes, Warren was caught in the open while round after round of mortars shook the earth and shattered the air with their explosions, stripping him of everything he had been trying so desperately to hold on to.

In No Place to Hide, Warren tells his story in a brand-new light, sharing how you can:

  • Discover who you are under pressure
  • Lean on faith in your darkest days
  • Find the strength to carry on, no matter what you're facing

Whether you are in the midst of your own struggles with faith, relationships, finances, or illness, No Place to Hide will teach you that how you respond in moments of crisis can determine your chances of survival.

Praise for No Place to Hide:

"No Place to Hide captures simply, eloquently, and passionately what it means to be a physician in time of war. Over ten years of war, we safely air evacuated more than ninety thousand injured and ill from Iraq and Afghanistan--five thousand were the sickest of the sick. This very personal story captures the essence of what it takes to be a military physician and the challenge for our nation to reintegrate all who deploy to war."

--Lt. Gen. (ret.) C. Bruce Green, MD, 20th AF Surgeon General

"Through Warren's eyes we observe not only the delicate mechanics of brain surgery but also its lifelong effects on real people and their families, both when the surgery succeeds and when it fails. Thank you, Lee Warren, for letting us see the world through your own unique vantage point. Thank you for the lives you saved, for the compassion you showed, for the faith you rediscovered, for reminding us of the precious gift of life."

--Philip Yancey, bestselling author of The Jesus I Never Knew

LanguageEnglish
PublisherZondervan
Release dateMay 6, 2014
ISBN9780310342175
Author

W. Lee Warren

W. Lee Warren, MD, is a board-certified neurosurgeon and patented inventor. He lives in Auburn, Alabama, with his wife and business partner, Lisa Warren, and their children. Dr. Warren has a BS in Biochemistry from Oklahoma Christian University and an MD from the University of Oklahoma. He practices minimally invasive brain and spinal surgery, develops new technologies with his wife through their company, Warren Innovation, and is an affiliate professor of biomedical sciences at Auburn University. In his spare time he plays guitar, writes songs, and recently completed his first novel, Kill Switch. Visit Lee at www.wleewarrenmd.com.

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Reviews for No Place to Hide

Rating: 4.55 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Dr. W. Lee Warren arrived at the 332nd Theater Hospital in Balad ab, Iraq in late 2004. His term of duty as a neurosurgeon ended four months later at the end of April, 2005. No Place to Hide – A Brain Surgeon’s Long Journey Home From the Iraq War is the story of those months. But it is more.

    Warren went to Iraq at a time when his marriage was teetering on the edge. His experience in Iraq is framed by the turmoil in his personal life. The dangers, pressure, and extreme injuries he faces every day in his work have him yearning to hear the voices of his young children, who don’t yet know of their parents’ impending divorce. As control of his life slips from his hands on all fronts, he is forced to rely on God in new ways. His story includes his spiritual pilgrimage during his time in the combat zone and also relates significant spiritual and psychological markers on his road to recovery after returning to the States.

    The book is detailed and graphic. It contains precise accounts of injuries, the surgeries Warren performed, remembered conversations, and emails home. We slog through the mud with him on the way from his sleeping quarters to the tent hospital during the rainy season, choke in dust and smoke during hot dry weather, smell the blood, sweat and unwashed bodies in the O.R., and hear mortars, shells and rockets exploding at all hours of the day and night. His explanation, at the end (when he faced the post-traumatic stress he experienced years after returning from Iraq) sheds light on his detailed recall of events. For he brought back with him, and finally unpacked, a bag of memorabilia—bullet bits, shards of shrapnel, segments of rockets—along with hundreds of photos documenting his experiences both in and out of the operating room.

    I personally wanted to read No Place to Hide to understand why so many war veterans return home only to continue to suffer symptoms of stress. This book is a good one to help one gain such an understanding. It’s an intense read as Warren’s stories reflect the non-stop pressure of life as a battlefield surgeon. Though well-written and captivating it is hard enough reading through such a litany of never-ending horrors. I can’t imagine living them!

    Warren’s memoir also shows a different side of the U.S. army than that broadcast by mainstream media. The 332nd Hospital had a policy of taking in friend and foe alike, treating Iraqi militants and civilians no matter whose side they were on. Though Warren doesn’t deny that mistreatment of prisoners of war happened at the hands of U.S. soldiers, his stories illustrate that U.S. doctors worked long, hard, and often to save enemy lives.

    Photos at the back of the book bring to life Dr. Warren and the scenes he describes.

    I recommend this book not only as a way to vicariously experience war, but also as a wonderful testimony to God’s keeping power during the toughest of times.

    I received No Place to Hide as a gift from the publisher, Zondervan, for the purpose of writing a review.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Dr. Warren recounts his service in Iraq, writing from both his mind and his heart. This book is not always an easy read, but the life of a combat neurosurgeon is not easy either.