CBS4's Hnida Wins Award For Book About Iraq

DENVER (CBS4) - A book written by Dr. Dave Hnida has been honored by a Colorado arts group as one of the best books of the year.

"Paradise General: Riding the Surge at a Combat Hospital in Iraq" was chosen as a Colorado Book Award winner in the Creative Nonfiction category.

The announcement was made on June 24 at the annual Colorado Book Awards ceremony in Aspen. The annual ceremony is presented by Colorado Humanities and also includes categories in biography, literature and poetry.

LINK: Paradise General Facebook Page
LINK: Colorado Book Awards

Archive Review: Hnida's Book On Iraq Lifts The Curtain

By Critic at Large Greg Moody

Dr. Dave Hnida has been down among it in Iraq twice. Once in 2004 as a Battalion surgeon with a combat unit. Then, in 2007 as a trauma chief at a Combat Support Hospital. It's that second deployment that forms the basis of the memoir, "Paradise General."

"Paradise General" is a memoir of four months in a Combat Support Hospital, four months in the chaos of mangled limbs, pleading faces and midnight helicopter arrivals of the wounded. It is one man's journey through hell and the battle with himself.

Hnida asks himself repeatedly -- why is he doing this? What is driving himself away from home and family, in his early 50s, to a second tour in a combat hospital?

It's duty and honor, but, primarily, it's family -- first, making peace with the memory of his father, a World War II vet, and, seeing his own children in the faces of the wounded and becoming determined to get them back to their own families.

It's a journey into hellish days of 130 degree temperatures, the madness of the military mindset, and the comfort of combat-forged friendships.

Few realize, it seems, what happens when we ask our troops to take on a combat assignment: the horror, the heartbreak, the pain -- both physical and mental.

Hnida makes the cost clear from his small corner of the Emergency Room, his small corner of the war, in an easy style that captures the fatigue, the fear and the determination to do all that is possible to save a life. You can't ask more than that of anyone.

"Paradise General" is tough, rewarding, funny, profane and heartbreaking. In other words, it is very real.

It makes me think, thank God for people like Dr. Dave who are willing to step forward.