The captivating individual stories of 17 U.S. Navy corpsmen who served in Vietnam, told in their own words. Their accounts relate why they joined the Navy in wartime, why they became corpsmen--the enlisted medical specialists of the Navy and Marine Corps--along with many day-to-day, sometimes minute-to-minute recollections of caring for both the wounded and the dead under fire. They also reflect on the long-term effects the war had on them and their families.

This is the testimony of Navy Corpsman (8404) assigned to the Marines during a specific period of time of the Vietnam War. The stories are based on actual situations that happened. While I have taken the liberty of rearranging time lines and changing some of the locations of the events and situations for the sake of the story, the basic occurrences happened pretty much the way they are written. Some things in life are even more unbelievable but too uncomfortable to tell, things that hurt yourself and may hurt others if you put real names and places to them. So, for me, writing this book, flowing the time line that I was, in fact, in Vietnam and mixing things up a bit, was the easy way out. I had no intention of ever writing a Historical Novel, and I certainly do it with this book. This is just a story about Navy Corpsmen in Vietnam, one particular one who loses his faith in almost everything, especially God. He wants to know why all this is happening around him and why has God allowed it? He is angry, very angry, with God and this World and just wants to understand why! The truth is he believes in God, but simply has lost faith in God. Acknowledging that it is very hard to accept that God is at work or even present when thrown in a circumstance like War. Do not get upset, or get spun around the spoke of a wheel with the details. The importance of this story is not in the minutia of small facts, but about good men in an untenable situation trying to save lives in an Unwinnable War. This particular man's story, who lost his faith in God and Humanity, but was able to regain back one of the two. I leave it up to the reader to decide where the truth may lay and where a story goes away from the path. The truth is that all of these things happened, some to me and some to others and were told to me by Corpsman and Marines during my time in NAM. Many of the experiences we endured in Vietnam we have share with one another. Others no one will ever share with anyone. They are hard to believe for those who have never been to War and maybe even for some who have. There are some experiences that most of us have deep inside. Stories that are pushed down and never visited except as nightmares in the very dark of night. This book includes true episodes of the actions and reaction of Navy Corpsman (8404) assigned to the Marines during a specific period of time of the Vietnam War. The stories are based on actual occurrences, or pieces of actual situations that happened. While I have taken the liberty of rearranging time lines and changing some of the locations of the events and situations for the sake of the story, the basic occurrences happened pretty much the way they are written. This is not a book that describes all the treatment rendered or a full picture of the blood and guts wounds suffered in that War. I have left most of that up to the imagination of the reader. I allude to them mostly without full description. I have had enough visions and memories of those events and my description would I believe only get in the way of the story. The reader can use their own imagination to visualize a situation where you are providing Field Treatment to numerous Critically Wounded Casualties under direct enemy fire. There are several books that describe and provide photos that show the types of injuries and wounds that occurred in Vietnam. The gore of such wounds and the gore resulting from those types wounds are well documented and displayed in other types of literature...

The Vietnam War was the prolonged struggle between nationalist forces attempting to unify the country of Vietnam under a communist government and the United States (with the aid of the South Vietnamese) attempting to prevent the spread of communism. This book is a true personal story of a young Navy corpsman's tour-of-duty with the 1st Marine Division's elite 1st Force Reconnaissance Company in Vietnam during the years of 1967-1968.

The Vietnam War was the prolonged struggle between nationalist forces attempting to unify the country of Vietnam under a communist government and the United States (with the aid of the South Vietnamese) attempting to prevent the spread of communism. This book is a true personal story of a young Navy corpsman's tour-of-duty with the 1st Marine Division's elite 1st Force Reconnaissance Company in Vietnam during the years of 1967-1968.

The author, a highly decorated sailor, relates the history of his thirteen-month tour of duty in wartime Vietnam in 19661967. He, embedded within the Marine Corps, tells about treating the wounded while exposed to live-fire conditions on everything from squad-size patrols to company-size missions. The author also relates how he fulfilled his responsibility for the marines health in camp; he was often the only medical person within miles. He describes the procedures for getting the wounded aboard a helicopter and transferred to a field hospital. Added to his responsibilities was caring for civilians as the United States tried to win the hearts of the Vietnamese people. He even had to treat a wounded Vietnamese who was still wearing the bandage he got from a prior skirmish with the Americans. Of equal interest to the author are the effects of battle not only on the warrior at the time but also in his life after military service. PTSD even affected this corpsman, and he suffers from itboth inpatient and outpatient experiences. Nineteen years old at the time of the war, he describes how quickly youth and social behavior are lost in combat. The author tells his story in fresh, readable prose and does not lose the reader in the actions of higher authority. He gives personal statements in a short reflection at the end of each chapter.

All his life Greg McPartlin wanted to be a Marine corpsman, a medic skilled at saving lives. Three months of bagging-and-tagging bodies during Vietnam's Tet Offensive took the luster off of being a Marine'but not off McPartlin's desire to serve his country.After assisting in the sea recovery of Apollo 11?the first ship to bring men to the moon'the twenty-year-old McPartlin was redeployed to Vietnam as an elite Navy SEAL. Barred as a medic from the make-or-break training of BUD/S considered vital to service as a Navy SEAL, McPartlin had to show he had what it took.But McPartlin had been in country before. In a war where you partied with your buddies in Saigon one day and crawled through an enemy-infested jungle hell the next, he proved that he was not only an outstanding medic but a real Navy SEAL'the toughest of the tough.Combat Corpsman is McPartlin's often humorous account of his year in what had been a Viet Cong stronghold until the SEALs took control'and Charlie placed bounties on the ?men with green faces.' It's the first inside story of a Navy SEAL medic, a man who wanted to heal'not to kill'but did both to save lives.'An accurate and humorous account of an early Navy SEAL platoon in Vietnam.'?Frank ThorntonMost Decorated SEAL from Vietnam era