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Nonfiction Lucky doc RACING BACK TO VIETNAM   By John Pendergrass 256 pp. Hatherleigh Press Reviewed By William C. Crawford This is a readable memoir brought forth on the 50th anniversary of the US withdrawal. There has been a plethora of recent writing in many genres focusing on the ever-controversial conflict. Due to the recent release of the acclaimed Ken Burns documentary, the nation’s attention has been painfully refocused to ponder the conundrums of this ill-fated example of American exceptionalism. The author’s wartime experience is unique in that he served as both a flight surgeon and a volunteer rear seat rider for 54 combat missions with an F-4 fighter squadron based in Da Nang. He had a cushy rear-echelon job that he left intermittently to bomb the Ho Chi Minh Trail in nearby Laos and North Vietnam. Pendergrass offers a straightforward account of both his medical life and his air-combat interludes, as well as the tightly knit camaraderie of a wartime fighter squadron. Th...