The Courage to Live

“The cart wasn’t a bomb. But it still haunts me.”On October 1st, 2017, Josh Bitsko stood outside a hotel room door on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. A suspicious room service cart, wired and placed for maximum damage, stood between him and the gunman responsible for the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. It looked like a bomb. Every instinct said run. He didn’t.That moment didn’t just test his tactical training. It rewired everything he believed about fear, courage, and what it means to move forward while everything in him told him to freeze or to run.In The Courage to Live, Retired Police Captain Josh Bitsko shares the untold story of that night and the years of pain, pressure, trauma, and guilt that followed. This book isn’t just about the largest mass shooting in American history. It’s about what happened after. It grapples with the emotional weight first responders silently carry, and how the scariest thing isn’t the gunfire, but the aftermath, when you realize you’ve stopped feeling anything at all. Read more