After being hauled out of a Vietnamese rice paddy in 1969 and then spending months in various neuropsychiatric wards in the United States, David Holdridge evolved to become a stalwart in the promotion of the American narrative overseas. As such, the author witnessed that business grow from a rather lonely pursuit to the global industry it is today - most commonly known in the West as Overseas Relief and Development. THE AVANT GARDE OF WESTERN CIV is the story of one foot soldier and his family as they sought to provide salve and transformation within the aftermath of the Iraq invasion in 2003. This memoir explores how difficult and often complicit giving can be.