Save a Life, Take a Life: Green Beret Medic in Vietnam and the Passage Home

Peter McShane, a young man of twenty-two, landed at the Cam Ranh Bay Repo Depot in 1967 to serve a tour of duty as a Green Beret medic. He believed what the recruiter had said about valor, heroism, and stopping the spread of communism, but barely five months later he lay in a hospital bed with a grievous bullet wound to the chest, suffering even worse psychological wounds from all he’d seen and done—and not done. After leaving the Army, he tried to put Vietnam behind and lead a normal life. Though he’d go on to be outwardly successful, on the inside he battled demons of anger, guilt, traumatic memories, and inability to trust, leading eventually to divorce and other destroyed relationships. Almost forty years later, after a breakdown and PTSD diagnosis, Peter began to examine his torment through writing. This book is the gripping story of his experience in Vietnam and how it shaped his life for decades to come.