You Don't Lose 'til You Quit Trying: Lessons on Adversity and Victory from a Vietnam Veteran and Medal of Honor Recipient

The inspiring true life story of Vietnam veteran, Medal of Honor recipient and veteran’s advocate Sammy Lee Davis.
 
On November 18th, 1967, Private First Class Davis’s artillery unit was hit by a massive enemy offensive. At twenty-one years old, he resolved to face the onslaught and prepared to die. Soon he would have a perforated kidney, crushed ribs, a broken vertebra, his flesh ripped by beehive darts, a bullet in his thigh, and burns all over his body.
 
Ignoring his injuries, he manned a two-ton Howitzer by himself, crossed a canal under heavy fire to rescue three wounded American soldiers, and kept fighting until the enemy retreated. His heroism that day earned him a Congressional Medal of Honor—the ceremony footage of which ended up being used in the movie Forrest Gump.
 
You Don’t Lose ’Til You Quit Trying chronicles how his childhood in the American Heartland prepared him for the worst night of his life—and how that night set off a lifetime battling against debilitating injuries, the effects of Agent Orange and an America that was turning on its veterans.
 
But he also battled for his fellow veterans, speaking on their behalf for forty years to help heal the wounds and memorialize the brotherhood that war could forge. Here, readers will learn of Sammy Davis’s extraordinary life—the courage, the pain, and the triumph.

Sammy Lee Davis received the Medal of Honor in 1968 for his actions during the Vietnamese attack on Support Base Cudgel. He also received the Silver Star and the Purple Heart, was named one of Newsweek’s 100 Unsung Heroes, and received the Joe Foss Institute’s annual award, among many other distinctions. He now travels throughout the U.S. and abroad to attend speaking engagements.
 
Caroline Lambert is a freelance writer and award-winning former journalist. While a staff writer and then Johannesburg bureau chief for The Economist, she reported from Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe, among others. She is the coauthor of Oil to Cash, holds an M.A. in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and an M.B.A. from INSEAD.