SAVED: A War Reporter's Mission to Make It Home (2023) By Benjamin Hall

 

Recently I received the book SAVED as a gift from my dear friend Angela.  While not my usual kind of read, it is immensely compelling.  It is not for the squeamish.

The book is a memoir by Benjamin Hall, a young man who worked as a war correspondent across the globe, a dangerous occupation.  Each assignment takes a toll on you when you are single, an even higher toll when you are married with three children. It is one thing to routinely put your life in harm’s way, quite another to put your future with your family on the line.  But that is what happened in February of 2022 when Russia invaded the Ukraine.  Hall volunteered to report from the frontlines where on March 14^th his life would change forever when the car he and his crew were in was struck by a Russian bomb.  He was the only survivor, using “survivor” as a term meaning he did not die.

The story follows the extracting of Hall from the immediate battlefield to a hospital in Kyiv which was actively being bombed at the time, electricity was sporadic, and a 72-hour curfew was in place.  He would lose one leg, and most of the other.  He had burns over 90% of his body, and multiple major “other” problems.  Doctors quickly determined they were not equipped to provide the immediate care he needed.  In a fascinating action sequence worthy of an espionage thriller, he is put on a train headed for Poland, stopped before the border and “smuggled” across the line where a helicopter was sent to convey him to an airport and then on to Landstuhl, the American military hospital in Germany.  From there to a stop over at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington DC, and then transferred to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas for recovery and rehab.

If one was horrified by the battlefield chapter, the detailed description of his medical rehab is even more harrowing.  Hall survives through sheer willpower, faith, an endless desire to see his family, and is helped by a huge network of people across the globe, from medical staff, war correspondent colleagues, with political and medical assistance from several places, veteran groups and importantly with strings pulled by his employer. The cooperation (some official, some not) is an amazing tale.

I hesitate to mention this, but credit must be given where it is due:  his employer is Fox News (the Network of Lies).  They, as friends and colleagues, were there for him every step of the way, including extracting him from the Ukraine, and arranging for him to be served by U.S. military hospitals.  Hall heaps praise on Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott who was/is at the center of the election lies scandals which cost Fox $787.5 million in a defamation lawsuit a couple of weeks ago.

Recommendation:  Get over your justified distaste for Fox, this is a very good book.

Code Talker (2011) By Chester Nez, with Judith Schiess Avila

 

Non-fiction: The author of Code Talker is Chester Nez, a Native American who was born and raised on the Navajo reservation in the Four Corners region (AZ, NM, CO, UT). As such, he was a citizen of the United States, yet not allowed to vote until 1948 due to state-enacted voting restrictions (sound familiar?).  

Like many Americans, Nez enlisted in the Marines after the attack on Pearl Harbor (ironic when one considers he grew up in the desert).  As history now knows, Nez was one of the original 30 “Code Talkers” – Marines who were fluent in speaking Navajo, a language barely used on the reservations anymore, and completely unknown in Japan and the rest of the world.  They were charged with developing a secret code in the Navajo language for use in battlefield radio transmissions.  Their code would be successfully field tested in the battle for Guadalcanal and remain in use, never broken, throughout the remainder of the war. Their code, and their involvement in it, would be classified until 1968 -- by which time many of them had passed away – long before being publicly honored or even acknowledged.

This memoir has several interesting storylines, not the least of which is growing up in the reservation/checkerboard culture, how the Native religions interplayed with one’s world view, particularly as it pertains to death, and includes how the Code Talkers (420 by the end of the war) faired after the war.

The now declassified code itself, and how it was developed is a completely interesting story.  It details how the little-known Navajo language, without words for such things as battleship and aircraft carrier, was updated, then embedded in a secret code.

Giving appropriate credit.  Judith Schiess Avila interviewed Chester Nez for what was to be a biography.  Since most of the narrative involves Nez telling his story, she changed the format to that of a memoir.  Crediting Nez as the author of his story.   

Recommendation:  Yes. Not just for history buffs.