This is the personal account of an army infantry platoon leader and commanding officer in the central highlands of Vietnam during 1967 and 1968 when he was 21 years old. These were the two bloodiest years of the war, a time when the U.S. army employed search and destroy missions with high casualty rates. The author provides a historical overview and casualty report of the Vietnam War, 15information about his military and officer training, and his return to civilian life after Vietn...

After spending a year in Germany as a security guard with the 50th Ordnance Company, Curtis Gay went to Viet Nam as a Private First Class. Six months later he was a Sergeant in the 25th Infantry Division and experienced some of the most intense fighting of the war. This book is his story.Curtis spent a year as a Drill Sergeant at Fort Dix, New Jersey before leaving the Army in 1968. After a long career in the electrical industry, he is retired and lives in Durham, North Carolina wi...

Enter and Die is a true war story about Jim Milliken and the Third Platoon, Delta Company, Second/Sixtieth, of the Ninth Infantry Division and their service in Vietnam. It is an accurate account of the historical facts and the time frame in which it occurred. The first-person soldier’s narration captivates the reader by becoming emotionally involved with the members of the Third Platoon. The author describes his feelings and thought processes when he is shot, kills the enemy, and witnesses...

This is the report of an American Paratrooper, Infantry, boots on the ground, in Viet Nam in the mid 1960s. It is not a romanticized, sanitized, fantasized Hollywood version of ground combat. It is a description of life on the ground for your military grandfathers, fathers, uncles and brothers. When they returned from Viet Nam, this is not what they talked about. It was too painful, too raw, too uncivilized and too inhuman. The accumulated fear and pain of a full years tour of duty was ove...

Charles Gadd served in Vietnam in late 1967 and 1968 and had experiences very similar to what most enlisted men endured. He describes the mud, blood, leeches, loss of friends, and low morale due to constant harassment by guerrillas. The author, a squad leader with the 101st Airborne, was wounded twice and saw nearly constant action in the Central Highlands. This memoir is a vivid and accurate description of the Vietnam War.*“I must explain that this story is writte...

It was 1968 and Robert Hartley was on his first combat mission in Vietnam as copilot of a helicopter gunship. As he and his platoon leader flew over the A Shau Valley, a Chinook helicopter engulfed in flames suddenly came into view. Hartley noticed tiny black smoking objects exiting the tail ramp of the aircraft. Seconds later, he realized those objects were men escaping the flames and plunging to their deaths. It was in that moment that he silently wondered, How the hell did I get here?

The book starts out picturing a young man who foolishly wants to go to war where he in vision’s himself receiving all these high class medals for heroism but never once taking into account what it is going to take physically and mentally to get those medals. He’s constantly playing a head game within himself and those that surround him. He like so many other young men of past eras are trying to be something that they’re not and that small initial lie grows into a tremendous reputation that...

A thoughtful, reflective narrative of a reluctant soldier that captures the rhythms of life in war as well as the boredom and chaos of Vietnam.At the height of the Vietnam War, Charles Carr left graduate school to serve in the army in Southeast Asia, knowing that if he didn't, another man would go—and possibly die—in his place. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion of the 47th Infantry (Mechanized) in the northern Mekong Delta for a tour of forcing himself through r...

No one in Vietnam had to tell door gunner and gunship crew chief Al Sever that the odds didn’t look good. He volunteered for the job well aware that hanging out of slow-moving choppers over hot LZs blazing with enemy fire was not conducive to a long life. But that wasn’t going to stop Specialist Sever.From Da Nang to Cu Chi and the Mekong Delta, Sever spent thirty-one months in Vietnam, fighting in eleven of the war’s sixteen campaigns. Every morning when his gunship lifted off, of...

After graduating from the University of Missouri in 1969 I was commissioned as an officer in the Marines. I served an interesting tour of duty in Southeast Asia in 1972, during which time I was in and out of six different countriesincluding Vietnam. A greenhorn lieutenant when I landed, I was eventually promoted to captain. Because of my God given take charge personality and a few very junior officer notable accomplishments I found myself frequently being handpicked for special assignments...

Raw, hard hitting, not politically correct, as it was during the early years of the 1970s. See through the soldiers eyes his perspectives, as he takes you visually through his personal slice of the non-winnable Vietnam War. Feel his fear and euphoria from the mundane to the cracking sounds of AK 47 rounds zipping past his head. Meet the friendly creatures persecuting the Grunts daily, while on operations. Feel his feelings on the few rest days, trying to unwind. A must to read, if you want...

As a young enlisted man, Randy Kington served on the front line with some of the first Marine combat units in Vietnam in 1965 and 1966. Kington describes his transformation from boy to man and the training that allowed him to survive nine months of some of the fiercest fighting of the Vietnam War. The good times of comradeship and of helping the underprivileged are contrasted with the life and death experiences that involved three major battles, countless ambushes, and search and destroy m...