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.

A compilation of military short stories from the author's experiences as a Navy Corpsman before, during and after the Vietnam war. The difficulties surrounding PTSD are featured.

"Corpsman Up" is the cry that echoes across the battlefield whenever a Marine is wounded in combat. The book tells the story of men at war from a unique perspective; that of a medical specialist assigned to a Marine combat platoon. It is 1969; Hospital Corpsman Mike Lombardo arrives in Vietnam determined to follow in the footsteps of his Dad and Grandfather in war. He quickly discovers there is nothing glamorous or heroic about war. Through Mike's eyes you go on a journey into a living hell and experience the thrills and horror of combat, the agony of the wounded and dead and see foxhole relationships develop between blacks and whites, farm boys and city kids. Experience the anguish, and concern with Mike, when friend after friend is wounded and he knows that their lives are in his hands and then wonders for the rest of his life if he did the right things.

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.

March 23, 2003: U.S. Marines from the Task Force Tarawa are caught up in one of the most unexpected battles of the Iraq War. What started off as a routine maneuver to secure two key bridges in the town of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq degenerated into a nightmarish twenty-four-hour urban clash in which eighteen young Marines lost their lives and more than thirty-five others were wounded. It was the single heaviest loss suffered by the U.S. military during the initial combat phase of the war. On that fateful day, Marines came across the burned-out remains of a U.S. Army convoy that had been ambushed by Saddam Hussein’s forces outside Nasiriyah. In an attempt to rescue the missing soldiers and seize the bridges before the Iraqis could destroy them, the Marines decided to advance their attack on the city by twenty-four hours. What happened next is a gripping and gruesome tale of military blunders, tragedy, and heroism. Huge M1 tanks leading the attack were rendered ineffective when they became mired in an open sewer. Then a company of Marines took a wrong turn and ended up on a deadly stretch of road where their armored personal carriers were hit by devastating rocket-propelled grenade fire. USAF planes called in for fire support play their own part in the unfolding cataclysm when they accidentally strafed the vehicles. The attempt to rescue the dead and dying stranded in “ambush alley” only drew more Marines into the slaughter. This was not a battle of modern technology, but a brutal close-quarter urban knife fight that tested the Marines’ resolve and training to the limit. At the heart of the drama were the fifty or so young Marines, most of whom had never been to war, who were embroiled in a battle of epic proportions from which neither their commanders nor the technological might of the U.S. military could save them. With a novelist’s gift for pace and tension, Tim Pritchard brilliantly captures the chaos, panic, and courage of the fight for Nasiriyah, bringing back in full force the day that a perfunctory task turned into a battle for survival. "Ambush Alley" is a gut-wrenching account of unadulterated terror that's hard to read yet impossible to put down. London-based journalist and filmmaker Tim Pritchard, who was embedded with US troops during the initial stages of the American-led invasion of Iraq, paints a compelling picture of one of the costliest battles of the Iraq war that will at turns anger, horrify, and sadden, regardless of one's political views." --The Boston Globe

Merriam Press Vietnam War Series. A coming of age story of a farm boy who grew up in the heartland of Kentucky, who enlisted in the Marines in 1969 and experienced Marine boot camp at Parris Island where domineering drill instructors took away the youth in the author and instilled the discipline, training, and motivation necessary to survive in combat. Arriving in Vietnam in March 1970 he was assigned to 3rd Platoon, Mike Co., 3rd Bn., 7th Marines. His story tells of the bravery, camaraderie, and esprit de corps of this Marine infantry squad. Fred's true accounts take the reader into the jungles, rice paddies, villages, and mountains of Vietnam. Lasting Visions takes you to ground zero of the Vietnam War. 33 photos, map.

"A US Navy Hospital Corpsman with a US Marine Corps Reconnaissance Patrol Team in the 1950's on covert Korean missions." I could add that "The five missions made by 'Doc Gentry' (assumed name for covert missions) with the Recon Patrols were all successful but, sadly, they suffered casualties on each mission."

Shane Murphy is an up and coming minor league baseball player with a lucrative future on the horizon. After the tragedy on 9-11-01, he makes a bold decision to leave his sport and enlists in the U.S.Marines. While in combat in Iraq, he finds an interesting "rock" in the rubble of war. This "rock" and its mystical properties enable Shane to re-join baseball and go on to become one of the greatest players in modern baseball history.