Perfectly Wounded

May 1, 2020
A Navy SEAL recounts a career of service and recovery from terrible wounds. In 2007, Day was involved in an operation designed to track down and neutralize a terrorist cell in Iraq's Anbar Province. He entered a room where four guns were trained on him, receiving 27 wounds--and still managed to kill all four shooters. Some of his memoir is by-the-numbers--it's no surprise to learn that SEALs undergo training that would send most people packing--and some of the narrative is a touch overwritten--as when he writes of that critical moment: "It was surreal, like something out of a movie: time slowed almost to a stop and everything happened in super slow motion, almost as if I were watching the scene unfold frame by frame." Each of Day's 27 wounds was, in the words of the doctors who treated him, "perfect"--that is, each entered and exited from his body without hitting a vein, artery, or vital organ, making treatment possible. "Not one of the bullets, or the combination of them all, was enough to kill me," he writes. Still, Day, who entered the service bearing the psychic wounds of an abusive childhood, suffered PTSD in the aftermath. Separated from the service, he spent time casting about for something to do before settling on a course of care for his fellow veterans and trauma sufferers, working both as a motivational speaker and a guide through the organization he founded called the Warrior Tribe, which provides "resiliency programming" for those who have undergone similar terrors to his. The author's account of his recovery is inspiring indeed, a matter of tough love, persistence, and an ethic borrowed in part from Mr. Rogers: "If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet...." Readers interested in care programs for returning veterans will find Day's account invaluable.

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January 1, 2020

Day served 21 years as a Navy SEAL, having been deployed to spots as far-flung as Kosovo and the Philippines and multiple times to the Middle East. While in Iraq, he survived being shot 27 times. The Bone Frog Challenge was created by Navy SEALs to inspire participants to become better athletes and recognize that they can do anything they choose, a thrown-down gauntlet Day obviously accepted with grace. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2020

While parts of his story have already been told in the news, former Navy SEAL Day finally shares his own perspective. While on a mission in Iraq, he was shot 27 times and had a grenade blow up right next to him. He was, as the title indicates, perfectly wounded--those rounds that weren't stopped by his body armor hit him in such a way that none of the wounds were fatal. After his retirement from the Navy, he found other ways to serve: as a case manager for wounded service members, and then as a contract trainer for future SEALs. Day reveals that years of physical and emotional trauma--starting with childhood abuse and continuing as a serviceman--compounded to leave him in a place where he was depressed and considered suicide. He looks at how many types of loss, from injury to losing a job, can strip away a person's agency. What shines throughout the book is Day's respect for the people around him, and how important it is to build trust. VERDICT Day offers an incredibly relatable story that is both open and unflinching in its honesty and self-reflection. Parts of the narrative are utterly gut-wrenching, but those same parts are also what makes this an essential book that is well worth reading.--Crystal Goldman, Univ. of California, San Diego Lib.

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.