<p>Viet Man is about the transformation of a young man who<br>enlisted in the Navy during the Viet Nam War, was trained as a<br>hospital corpsman, was transferred into the Marine Corps, then<br>sent to Viet Nam where he joined the elite First Recon.<br>It is a first person narrative of alternating episodes experienced<br>in the rear and in the bush. In the rear, Doc encounters<br>a straw-haired mid-western farm boy who shows him how to<br>prepare a meal of long-rats, and Loopie, a Puerto Rican from<br>the Bronx who shares a guilt-torn confession that borders on<br>confabulation. In the bush, Doc experiences the terror of accidentally<br>releasing a live grenade among his men, of rushing to<br>rescue a wounded marine, and of sharing a quiet conversation<br>in a bunker with Trang, a South Vietnamese soldier.<br>After being assigned to the Recon Dive Team and attending<br>the Navy diving school in the Philip-pines, he returns to Viet Nam<br>were he engages in numerous combat dives and river operations.<br>At the end of his tour, he is processed out of the military.<br>And upon his return to his hometown as a veteran, he faces<br>a jarring reception of insolence, indifference, and fragmented<br>flashbacks. In Viet Man, D.S. Lliteras unlocks the inner mystery of<br>a man’s combat experience. It is poetic and haunting, authentic<br>and amusing. It is a story told by a man who ultimately survives<br>the war and returns to his homeland, but another country will<br>forever dwell in his soul.</p>