Publishing a critically acclaimed best-seller should be eminently satisfying for most writers, but not for Dr Ronald Joel Glasser. In fact, he wished his extraordinary debut 365 Days could never have been written.

It all started in September 1968 when the 29-year-old paediatrician was assigned to Camp Zama Army Hospital in Japan. Originally tasked with taking care of children of military officers, Glasser ended up treating injured soldiers from the front line of the Vietnam War. Most of them were not much older than his young patients. Feeling compelled to tell what he had seen and heard, he began writing war stories, 17 of which were published in 1971 under the title 365 Days, a reference to the length of a military tour of duty in Vietnam.

In war literature, courage is a common theme that is usually embodied in the act of soldiers fighting against great odds to triumph over their enemies. Yet, it is portrayed differently in Glasser’s short stories, some of which feature non-combatant men and women as the main characters. Among them are “Dust Offs”—helicopter teams landing at battle zones amid heavy fire for medical evacuation—and medics of the front line, who would limit their own food and water so that they could carry more medical supplies. Easily overshadowed as their roles might have been, the actions of these medics are testimony to the fact that bravery could come in the form of saving lives rather than taking them.

Courage is also seen in the uncomplaining endurance of the wounded at the army hospital. One of them was David Jensen, a 20-year-old patient in the burn unit. To avoid bacterial infection in his wounds, he had to soak himself in a bathtub every day. Painkillers were not used, out of concern that this would result in addiction. Painfully suppressing his groans, he silently endured the sight of large and small pieces of burnt skin peeling off from his body.

In describing the sacrifice, suffering and struggle of military personnel, Glasser does not romanticise or glorify combat. “Going for something they didn’t believe in or for that matter didn’t care about, just to make it 365 days and be done with it,” he writes of the young conscripts. The soldiers had no illusions about the cause for which they were supposedly fighting. They obeyed orders and performed their duties in the field, with the ultimate goal of making it through just 365 days. Yet many could not make it. And for those fortunate enough to return home, life would never be the same.

The heart-wrenching part of 365 Days lies not merely in the loss of lives, but in seemingly insignificant moments that indicate the loss of innocence among the young, who were already comfortably numb with violence. In one story, a group who had carried out a night ambush returned to their base in the morning. Waiting for their breakfast, they recounted the blood and gore of the killings overnight and talked about a comrade killed in action. Despite the heaviness of these topics, there was a startling lack of emotion in the conversation. No sorrow, no grief, no anguish. At the end of the tale, one of them flied into a fit of rage only because there were no more cornflakes left.

Although not a single story is written from the perspective of Vietnamese civilians, their agony is obvious. Glasser tells of a village being blown up because a single sniper round was fired from that general direction, and an old Vietnamese man casually shot simply because he refused to hand over a carton of cokes on his bicycle. In one of Jensen’s treatment sessions, to distract him from the pain, his medic asked him of his impression of women in Vietnam. Jensen replied that he had not met any local people, adding casually, “We killed ’em all.” In various ways, the book suggests that war atrocities were common, with trivial matters easily escalating into violent deaths, and civilian casualties accepted as nothing more than collateral damage.

Today, when strife seems to be too easy to escalate into fights and then into battles, 365 Days gives a lasting reminder of wartime brutality and its aftermath. In the preface to the second edition of this classic of war literature, Glasser notes, “If there was a lesson in the experiences of Vietnam … I was convinced it could come only from the recounting of the individual acts of those who had paid the price.” With lessons from the past in mind, we might finally be able to take a slow but steady step towards the day when peace prevails.