Combat Corpsman

Combat CorpsmanBy: Greg McPartlin 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 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

By: Greg McPartlin  

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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 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 by the Geneva Convention from the make-or-break training considered vital to service as a Navy SEAL, McPartlin had to show he had what it took.

In a war where soldiers partied with their buddies in Saigon one day and crawled through an enemy-infested jungle hell the next, McPartlin proved that he was not only an outstanding medic but a real Navy SEAL-the toughest of the tough.
 
Combat Corpsman is McPartlin's account of his year in what had been a Viet Cong stronghold until the SEALs took control. 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.