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.