Customer Reviews

Crossfire: The Aust. Recon. Unit in Vietnam

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Highly recommended, there is an excellent chance that this book is the one for which you have been searching. Written by two Australian veterans of the war in Vietnam and standing as a tribute to all who served in that conflict, Crossfire is a unique look at the way in which a specialized Australian infantry platoon operated as a reconnaissance unit in the field. While the style of writing is at once both raw and gritty, it is nonetheless a book with a great deal of soul. It tells the story of how a bunch of blokes at the sharp end, fought (and in some cases, died) in what became Australia's longest and most divisive war. Like so many "Diggers" who went before them, they did their duty and more. They laughed together, felt pain and sometimes cried together, but throughout, maintained that very Australian characteristic in the face of adversity: a stoic determination to see the job done, no matter what.

Crossfire is much more than just another war story, however. It goes beyond the jungle-bashing and the contacts and the firefights; beyond the heat and the sweat and the sometimes gut-wrenching fear that were the essence of the grunt's war in Vietnam. The authors have adopted a mode of presentation that works extremely well and complements the theme of the main narrative. Interwoven with the exploits of the Reconnaissance Platoon as it sought to come to grips with its task in the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam, is a separate but complementary story focused on the present. It looks briefly at a small group of veterans, some thirty years after the event, as they seek a kind of cathartic release while camping and hiking in the Flinders Ranges, that area of rugged but serene, natural beauty in "outback" South Australia.

Based on incidents and events that actually occurred, Crossfire not only holds the interest all the way, but in many places reads like a best-selling novel. Indeed, it is one of those rare books, which once started, is entirely difficult to put down. This is a very worthy addition to the genre, and it is a credit to Peter Haran and Robert Kearney that they have captured so faithfully what it was to be in action on the ground in Vietnam. If you are a veteran of the Vietnam War, then in a very real sense the incidents and events portrayed in the book will have an uncanny knack of taking you back there. It will take you back to another time and another place - to a conflict and an era that you have known intimately, and which will forever feature in the history of the Australian soldier at war. If you are not a veteran and you read no other book on the subject, you must read this one. As Lieutenant General Peter Cosgrove, Chief of the Australian Army, says in the foreword to Crossfire: "Read this story. Read about these Australians. They are so ordinary but so extraordinary - they are heroes."