About the Book

As I approached the first building in my direction, something caught my eye to my right, to the north, where there was a small dirt yard of sorts. I spied the burnt-out and mangled hull of a Cougar 4 x 4 MRAP tactical vehicle that appeared to have been the victim of an IED blast. As I took in the sight of its hull, I knew that I wasn’t “in Kansas anymore.”

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Before the sound of gunfire registered in my brain a nanosecond later, I first noticed little wisps of sand dancing in the dirt around our group’s feet as the enemy rounds started to hit our position on the hill. Everybody instinctively and collectively began to run for cover towards the back of the building. Everything seemed to be in slow motion as my perception of time was expanded in the moment as my adrenaline kicked in.

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In 1991, as a med student in Cleveland, Ohio, Lee Pietrangelo and his loving family spend anxious nights in front of the TV, hoping for any news at all about Lee’s identical twin brother’s deployment in the Persian Gulf War. While welcoming his brother Jim home from war, Lee accepts his destiny to join the military and answer his own call to serve his country. Following an intense internship as a newly-minted doctor, Lee is soon reporting to Naval Air Station Pensacola for flight surgeon training, where he will undergo a dauntingly rigorous training program that tests his courage and his stamina in a way they’ve never been challenged before.

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For twenty-three years, Lee serves as flight surgeon and combat doctor through deployments in peacetime and in war, in Iceland, Iraq, and Afghanistan, among other far-flung places in the world. In photo-realistic detail, They Call Me Dr. P reveals the day-to-day life of a military doctor, from gut-churning rides in fighter jets, to Hollywood-style MEDEVAC rescues, to sandstorms across the Iraqi desert, to Humvee rides over IED-strewn roads, all the way to combat hospitals and mortar attacks. So observantly described that readers will feel they are right there with Dr. P through all his experiences, this memoir offers a perspective on military service that’s rarely seen, that of a doctor with a great passion to serve something bigger than himself.