The Heart of the Country: Cash or Combat, a True Story of Vietnam's Life or Death Lottery [Hardcover]

Kay Slesinger (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Smith Pub Co (July 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0963224107
• ISBN-13: 978-0963224101
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #460,336 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars To Be A Heroic Warrior Or An Unpatriotic Coward, June 18, 2009

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Bernie Weisz "a historian specializing in the... (Pembroke Pines,Florida U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Heart of the Country: Cash or Combat, a True Story of Vietnam's Life or Death Lottery (Hardcover)

The Vietnam War brings back memories of protests, "My Lai", "Hamburger Hill", "The Wall in Washington", etc. But here are the cold facts. Between August 4, 1964, when the U.S. entered the Vietnam War formally with the "Tonkin Gulf Resolution", to March 28, 1973, when the last American troops left, 26,800,000 men came of draft age and over 51,000 died. The Killing Zone: My Life in the Vietnam War Of those, 17,000 died from gunshot wounds, 7,500 from multiple fragmentation wounds, 6,750 from grenades and mines, 10,500 from North Vietnamese Army action, 8,000 from non hostile causes, and 350 by suicide. However, many of this nation's youth did not serve. From the beginning of hostilities, to the final evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, 27 million American men were eligible for the draft, and only one third served at all, and under 10% ever went to Vietnam.

For refusing to serve and burning their draft card, only 3,000 draft resisting men went to prison for violating U.S. draft laws, even though over 200,000 Americans were officially charged. Even though they broke the law by failing to register, an additional 250,000 were never even indicted. A Rumor of War For those Americans who were afraid to die in the jungles of Vietnam, over 50,000 chose exile in Canada or Sweden. After the war, Gerald Ford announced his clemency program and 40,000 former exiles returned. From the initial March 8, 1965 landing at Danang to the last chopper lift off from the top of the Saigon Embassy, there were only 24 cases of battlefield desertion. Oddly enough, 20,000 Americans engaged in vicious combat and upon their return to "The World" (the U.S.) deserted from the military. DAYS OF VALOR: An Inside Account of the Bloodiest Six Months of the Vietnam War And what about the G.I. that was in Vietnam and wanted"out" after seeing endless patrols, fruitless search and destroy missions, and watching their comrades get killed senselessly with no victory in sight?

This is exactly what this book is about. Kay Slesinger wrote this book in collaboration with her brother, Ron Latham, and two of his fellow former G.I.s, Tom Duncan and Mike Ovide. The three of them found their way to pay their way out of the field, hence the subtitle of this book: "Ca$h or Combat". Soldiering On in a Dying War: The True Story of the Firebase Pace Incidents and the Vietnam Drawdown (Modern War Studies) This is a true story of three G.I.'s in the "Big Red One" stationed outside Saigon (Di An) from 1969 to 1970 that had one thing in common-they all paid their way out of combat. Latham felt no guilt in recounting his story to his sister: "Since the Pentagon has admitted that the top NCO of the U.S. Army was convicted of making millions of dollars off gambling devices during the Vietnam War, a Colonel was using Taxpayers planes to fly drugs back and forth to the U.S., I saw no need to die in a war that made no sense. The choice of paying my way out of the field was an easy one for me. The War Above the Trees As the leaders go, so go the troops, and I sure as hell wasn't going to be a hero in this war." Tom Duncan was a less brass and expressed remorse and guilt: "I'm a very family oriented man. My family means more to me than anything. My biggest fear about paying my way out of the field was shaming my parents. However, they were all for it, and sent me the money immediately."

In reading this book, I could not tell if what this alleges really occurred. I asked an ex S.O.G. member if "ca$h or combat" actually occurred. He had heard of soldiers trying to bribe their way into special forces, but never a regular grunt paying their way out of the field.All three veterans detailed explicitly their methods of how for a price they were able have their orders changed from combat soldiers to duty soldiers. Nam-Sense: Surviving Vietnam with the 101st Airborne They paid this fee to an organized military program run by others in the military who set up a fake company called the "First Administration Company". Throughout the book are photocopies of checks paid for this purpose, newspaper articles that detail activities of this fake company set up by those that bought fake rear assignments, and supposedly declassified military records that document these spurious false assignments. "The Heart of the Country" goes further. The buying and selling of U.S. dollars, selling cigarettes on the black market, and the ability to pay to be a Sergeant are all included.

For a price, one could even pick where they wanted to be assigned upon their return to the U.S. However, this avoidance of being in combat came back to haunt some of the vets in this story. Also covered is the sense of shame and guilt that the vets in this story lived to tell while their fellow soldiers that didn't have the means to pay their way out of the field and in some cases came back from the war in body bags. Last Man Out: A Personal Account of the Vietnam War It is interesting to note that at the end of the book Tom Duncan, who paid his way out, told one of his ex hooch mates what he did, and instead of getting mad at him, he thought Duncan did the right thing, as the war "was a sad joke"! I found this book to be very thought provoking, and raised many moral and ethical questions about the Vietnam War that unfortunately has vanished from the public's conscience in the wake of what's going on currently in Iraq. Regardless, an excellent, yet unknown timepiece and historical document of the Vietnam War. A must read for anyone interested in this conflict.