"Coppola" accomplishes an impressive number of literary feats in a subtle manner. Written, ostensibly, about the Iraq War, this memoir manages to be--almost completely--apolitical. This is not to say that Dr. Coppola does not share the opinions he held pre- and post-deployment. He just doesn't express his opinions as facts and has the humility to admit when he doesn't know something.
Like his medical work, his chronicling of events is professional and done with care, but he doesn't make the common memoir mistake of over-insinuating himself in stories that are already compelling.
Additionally, the descriptions of the war, surgery, and life in Iraq are vivid, yet not gratuitous. He seems uninterested in inflating his ego by trumping up his own actions and accomplishments and does not seek sympathy from the reader beyond that of any other person, far away from home, who misses family while struggling with the difficult work at hand.
His candidness regarding his own struggles, his attention to detail in giving readers a glimpse into a largely unknown facet of warfare and medicine, and his care in revealing the beauty and humanity in the many Iraqis (and military members) he meets go a long way toward creating a very readable, enlightening, and touching book, where many before Dr. Coppola have seemed content to bombard the reader with mere statistics or bravado.