Most draft-aged young people growing up in the sixties and seventies had to make a personal decision, one way or another, about the war in southeast Asia. They could answer the call to duty and join their country’s fight against communism in Vietnam or they could join those who were protesting that very war. This book is an accounting of one who was there, one who spent his days jumping in and out of doorless helicopters on airborne assaults. One who learned to regard the people themselves with distrust, looking down some jungle trail for a faceless enemy with a boobie trap or mine. One who spent his nights on watch in three-man ambush positions, his life literally in the hands of his two companions who were just as bone-weary as he was. This is the story of one squad leader and his squad, the men and women he met, and how it changed his life forever.
