I Was A Hero Once

An ordinary life, forever altered by extraordinary circumstances.

In 1968, Peter P. Mahoney's world was turned upside down when he joined the Army, became an infantry lieutenant, and was deployed to Vietnam. Upon his return, he found himself embroiled in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) movement and indicted for conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1972 Republican Convention—the so-called Gainesville Eight case—where his friend surfaced as an FBI informer testifying against him.

In the early eighties, Mahoney played a pivotal role in establishing the New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial and later joined a delegation of veterans to meet with Soviet counterparts from their Afghanistan War. He fell in love with a Russian woman, married her, and spent nine years raising a family in a world vastly different from the suburban middle-class life he had left behind.

Now, he shares the extraordinary stories from that finite period that forever changed the trajectory of his ordinary existence.

Peter P. Mahoney served in Vietnam as an infantry lieutenant. After returning home, he joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In 1972, he was indicted for conspiracy to incite a riot at the Republican convention, the Gainesville Eight case. In 1983, he worked for the New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commission. He helped to collect letters written to and from Vietnam. Excerpts of these letters were engraved on the memorial, and were published in a book called Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam. The dedication of the memorial and a ticker tape parade took place in 1985. After a long career in international development, he retired in 2017. He is married with two children and lives in Warren, Vermont.