The Gunners' Doctor: Vietnam Letters

(Paperback)

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In 2005, David Bradford got the surprise of his life- his elderly mother found an old shoe-box at the back of her cupboard that contained a pristine record of one of the most turbulent times of his generation - and of his own personal life. Mrs Bradford had unearthed every letter that her twenty-six-year-old son had sent home from the Vietnam War...During his time there, from May 1967 to May 1968, David wrote home almost daily, documenting his experiences as an idealistic Army doctor with the officers and gunners of 4 Field Regiment in the Royal Australian Artillery, and the officers and troopers of a squadron of the 3 Cavalry Regiment. These selected and edited letters, which were written almost 40 years ago in the chaos of the Vietnam War, are not just detailed accounts of David's daily life, his medical work, and the stresses and pressures of life in a war-zone. They are also, as David admits, a deliberately inaccurate picture of what was a painful forging of his true identity. David was brought up in a very religious, loving home. He didn't drink, smoke, swear or dance - and he had never once kissed a girl. In his missives from Vietnam, there were deeply personal things he

Author Bio

David Bradford is a semi-retired sexual health physician and a foundation fellow of the Australasian Chapter of Sexual Health Medicine (FAChSHM). He graduated from Sydney University in 1965 and has had an interest in Sexual Health since serving as a Regimental Medical Officer in the Australian Army in South Vietnam in 1967/68. After a brief flirtation with Surgery and obtaining the FRCS from the English and Edinburgh Colleges, he spent a period in General Practice in the east end of London in the seventies and then decided to devote his professional life to Sexual Health Medicine.