Charlie Company: What Vietnam Did to Us (A Newsweek book) [Hardcover]

Peter Goldman (Author), Tony Fuller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1983 | Series: A Newsweek book

There were no homecoming parades for the million men and women who served in the longest war America ever fought...the only war it has ever lost. This is a book about 65 of those nearly forgotten men who soldiered in the late 1960s in a gook-hunting, dirt-eating, dog-soldiering infantry unit called Charlie Company.

They were boys then, 19 or 20 years old on the average. The army snatched them up out of small towns, suited them up as soldiers and sent them off to a place they could not locate on a map to fight a war they did not understand.

CHARLIE COMPANY is not a military history. It is not a record of battles or a moral commentary. It is instead a chess game viewed by the pawns. It is a collective memoir of the war and the homecoming, filtered through time and pain, anger and guilt, bitterness and forgetfulness.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

8 1.5-hour cassettes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 358 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Co; 1st edition (March 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688015492
• ISBN-13: 978-0688015497
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #998,713 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You will become one of the "grunts" of Charlie Company!, May 13, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Charlie Company: What Vietnam Did to Us (A Newsweek book) (Hardcover)

This is Vietnam as I remember it while serving as one of the "grunts" on the ground during 1969-1970. Each soidier tells his story as only he can about his experiences. You will understand the complexities of combat as told by each soldier and how each similar situation was handled,not only at the time of the contact, but many years later "back in the world". How have we survived the combat? Many have and many have not. A must read for combat veterans as well as those living with one.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great book!, November 11, 2009

By 

Heather (Burlington, Nj United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Charlie Company: What Vietnam Did to Us (Mass Market Paperback)

This is by no means an action book like some of the reviewers expected. This book is true to the title "What Vietnam did to us". Your reading about the true thoughts, feelings, and reflections of Vietnam Vets 12 years after the war is over. I found it very powerful, and I'm glad my father recomended it to me.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Great Concept Poorly Executed., July 20, 2003

By 

Mendicant Pigeon "Mendicant Pigeon" (pdx, or United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Charlie Company: What Vietnam Did to Us (Mass Market Paperback)

I had such high hopes for this book. The concept was a fine one: Follow the exploits of the members of a single company that served in the Vietnam war. Apparently, this project was initiated by the Newsweek magazine and the result of that first effort was a series of awards for excellent reportage. The authors attempted to expand the project for publication in book form. Unfortunately, the scope of the project is so large and unwieldly that the result is a major disappointment. The reason for this is that so many different people were required to compile the information of such a large number of people that the text has the feel of a third hand account written from a translation. In other words, it reads like a committee report. Thus, it is difficult to form any strong opinions or acheive insight because there is no internal logic which governs the book. Plus, many of the soldiers' stories seem to have been concoctions of incidents taken from a dozen different events. Much of the personal information about the soldiers seems, well, impersonal. If you would like to experience a successful execution of the concept, read the book 'Survivors' by Zalin Grant. In it he covers the POW lives of a dozen U.S. prisoners and he does it brilliantly. You will put that book down feeling that you have read something very original and very meaningful.