This is not an account of the airborne helicopter search and destroy campaign. Would recommend it to EVERYONE!!! How many were there? In an instant he was gone, and I recognized with a feeling of awe that I was now in command. Their blank expressions told us little. Barry and I had spent many a day sparring together, getting ready for the competition in our respective weight classes. Two black, glazed pupils stared out at me in an expression of mute horror. This man's uniform told me that he was a first lieutenant currently assigned to the 173d Airborne Brigade and that he had already been in combat with them. I was expanding my intellectual horizons and feeding my hunger for adventure-- right in my own backyard. Think, think! There were three breaks in the wire to allow for entrance and egress to and from the platoon position. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. The village itself was an inverted L-shape, its east-west leg lying across the northern flank of 2d Platoon and its north-south leg lying due east of the command post. It was time to meet my key subordinate leaders. The plane got hotter. It is also a significant commentary on the conduct of the war in Vietnam at all levels and war in general. Sports were important then. I don't know why. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 12, 2012. Earlier, I had been afraid only of being physically maimed or killed. To the south about five thousand meters were a number of Vietnamese units. Platoon Leader details McDonough's time in Vietnam commanding an undermanned platoon assigned to protecting a village in the Strategic Hamlet program. It was time to survey my domain. "Dinks put in a potato field. So we kept to ourselves and waited. Field operations, mission support, Class III V Maintenance Transportation, Medical support, and I. An artilleryman’s gritty, confidential account of his tour of duty at the war’s peak, battling futility, loneliness, regulations and the enemy. What was it like? Later, after almost three months in the field, I saw Rolfe again. They were, in every respect, indistinguishable from the peasantry. The latter waited for the shock of incoming rounds that might catch us like so many targets encased in the lumbering plane. His eyes were fixed on the crazed, garbled scenes in his mind. In April I wrote the commander of the 173d Airborne Brigade, whose unit was reputed to be the toughest regular army unit in Vietnam, and asked to serve in his outfit. We spent two days processing our records, glancing at the sights of Vietnam beyond our containment area, awaiting orders for unit assignments, and wondering what fate awaited us. It was a proud unit with a reputation of being proven in combat. In the morning the helicopter came to take Rolfe away. He was not the leader of this platoon. "Are you here to take my place?" We watched the delicate women in their captivating long, high-slit dresses worn over graceful, satiny pants. Still raw and powerful. Though written from an officers perspective it was very beneficial to me as a mid-level (SSG / E6). It tells the story of James. That is why that is a reason I both enjoyed it as well as didn't enjoy it. This was not Malaysia. We flew into Qui Nhon, the nearby U.S. Air Force Base and the site of the medical facility that cared for the wounded and sick U.S. and allied casualties of Vietnam's central coastal area. At last my orders came, deluding me into thinking for an instant that I might be in control of my destiny after all. I was shaken to my bones. For fiftysix days I thought of nothing but survival. Could this be a mean trick? Nor do I offer this book as the definitive description of the war in Vietnam. Then I started to read it and eventually I couldn't put it down! Although Nail is uncomfortable, I am glad I had him transferred. Nobody had qualified from the lower East Side of Manhattan. Something went wrong. He even had a few combat awards for valor, the procurement of which fell among his duties as battalion adjutant. But West Point was exciting--from the very first days of "Beast Barracks" (the equivalent of basic training) there was talk of "the war in the jungles." Only a year? Col. McDonough gives a first hand account of his personal experience being a platoon commander in the Vietnam War. It was a theory the British had adapted to Vietnam after their experience with it in Malaysia. A compelling and disturbing page-turner. Months later I would see how effective they were as I led a relief force into one of their positions, which had been completely overrun, all of their fifty men killed. But I fought. I looked at the cover with mixed feelings at first, apprehensive about reading it. There were the girls--a few at first, and then in my last year, one very special girl. I wanted to know. Amidst the wire were bamboo "punji" stakes, bamboo poles honed to a fine point, hardened by fire, and embedded in the ground. Momentarily, their names escape me. 457 Pgs, 55 Pics. Those who are not destined for armed combat usually will not be drafted for armed combat. The security element withdrew from its position and retreated to the barbed wire that encircled the lone infantry platoon that guarded this remote corner of the world. As a rifleman, he was wounded three times. I remembered Hernandez's voice that night as he sat in the darkness waiting to be the last to cross behind the ranger file. He's been lucky so far, but I know the odds are against his pulling through a fourth wounding. I bawled at the end. It was a personal challenge, and I prided myself on my ability to cope with it. Everyone was wondering what the new lieutenant would be like, and I would be telling them with my first words, my gestures, my demeanor, my eyes. Bantam Books, Inc., 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103. The men were going about the morning's business--breaking out C rations, relieving themselves, shaving, brushing their teeth. I would have no grace period in which to learn my way around. Physically he was unmarked; spiritually he was dead; mentally he was as mutilated and twisted as the most grotesque cadaver he had described. In his hand he carried a small gym bag that could have held little more than a smattering of clothing. Over two hundred of us winged across the Pacific in a chartered plane, as if we were off" to a vacation in the Hawaiian Islands. It was my first order, and it sounded good. "How are you doing?" He was not going to be the one to strike up a conversation. I could pretend that the great drama of combat lay in my future, but in truth I knew that wars just did not last that long. The twelve weeks of basic infantry schooling seemed beneath my dignity, as it did to all second lieutenants, but it did give me time to get to know my wife, if only between the hours of 7 P.M. and 5 A.M. Either you stepped on one or you didn't. It is narrated by McDonough in first person view and tells of his story in the Vietnam War as a lieutenant in command of 2nd Platoon, Bravo Company, 4th Battalion, 503rd Infantry (Airborne). I become wary. Transition of greenhorn to seasoned war ridden. A New York State Regents Scholarship and a part-time evening job were answering the question of how to afford college. So who fights? It didn't occur to me then that the irreversible step had been taken years ago in some forgotten moment of my childhood.
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