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Former Corpsman's Book Recalls Battle For Iwo Jima
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Published: December 28, 2007
NEW PORT RICHEY - Author Frank Falgout tried to capture on paper the courage of American troops during one of the fiercest battles in Marine Corps history.
"The Life of a Navy Corpsman: To Marine Corpsman, To Medical Doctor and Beyond" recounts Falgout's World War II experiences at Iwo Jima and his life after that.
A longtime member of the Marine Corps League, Holiday, FL Detachment 567, he wrote about how Marines, with Navy medical corpsmen alongside, fought for control of the volcanic island, a Japanese stronghold, in 1945.
Parts of the book will remind readers of Clint Eastwood's film "Flags of Our Fathers," said Joseph S. Baldyga, the detachment's public relations officer.
Falgout survived the bloody Iwo Jima campaign as part of the 4th Marine Division. The Marine Corps does not include medical personnel among its ranks, relying instead on specially trained Navy corpsmen such as Falgout.
Ordinarily the Marine Corps League has allowed only Marine veterans as members, Baldyga explained, but it now grants full membership to Navy corpsmen who served with the Fleet Marine Force.
Falgout was born in New Iberia, La., in what is known today as Cajun country, and was the middle child of seven. He was the first of the Falgout families of Delcambre, La., where he moved when he was 12, to graduate from high school, according to information on his publisher's Web site.
He also was the first to join the military, to graduate from a university, to go to graduate school and to become a physician.
Falgout went on to be a cardiac specialist in Naples and in the Louisiana cities of Lafayette, Abbeville and New Iberia, the Web site says. He also helped set up the first intensive care units in Lafayette and Abbeville and at Orange Memorial Hospital, now Orlando Regional Medical Center.
He and his wife, Viola, raised two sons and retired to Port Richey. In 1993, he continued teaching advanced cardiac life support to nurses, paramedics and physicians in five western Florida counties and at the University of South Florida's medical school.
To order Falgout's 245-page book, at $25 plus shipping and handling, call Trafford Publishing at 1-888-232-4444 or order online at www.trafford .com/06-0245. An excerpt is posted at that site.
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