Customer Reviews

MIA Rescue

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was the 2nd book that I have read written by Mr. Jorgenson. The first was Acceptable loss. One of the best I have ever read. MIA Rescue is just as good but more focused on a particular mission. Mr. Jorgenson's style of writing is very smooth and combines points of view from all soliders involved in this rescue mission. Including his own in a very unique way. From the guys that were wounded, to the troops going in to get them, to the pilots flying through the thick fog, Jorgenson captures the full realm surrounding this very very stressful situation.
I would recommend this book to anyone. Mr. Speilberg or Mr. Stone if you are out there. Please look at this book! This story needs to be told on the big screen!

So here's the thing. I needed a copy of my book, MIA Rescue, to give to a friend (no, the book company doesn't give them to me for free) so I went on-line and bought one at Amazon. The book arrives and then I get an e-mail from Amazon asking me to rate the book...eh, my book.

Okay. Sure.

So here it is: First of all, I like my book because I get to tell you, the public, about a rescue mission for a missing long range patrol/Ranger team during the Vietnam war. I wrote it in tribute and basically to brag about some of the good people who volunteered to go on this critical and dangerous mission; people like Tony Cortez and Ed Beal( the guys on the cover), and so many others who went behind enemy lines to search for and rescue the survivors. I wrote the book to tell you about those LRRP/Rangers like Royce Clark, who was one of the missing Lurps. Seriously wounded he and the few others were doing their damnedest just to stay alive and survive. In researching the mission from various aspects (the missing LRRP/Rangers, the Blues who went in for them, gunship pilots, lift ship pilots, et al) I tried to find and include as many of those who took part in the mission in order to tell a more accurate story. Even so, years later I wish I told you more about the various people involved. They deserved the recognition then and any time they might have in the proverbial limelight. Also, I wish I could have done a better job on the book. But that's how writing is, well, at least my writing.

The book is a tribute to those members of H Company LRRP/Rangers and Apache Troop, the 1st of the 9th CAV and I was proud to chronicle their deeds. While I'm still hacking away with the hopes that one day my writing will allow me to own a car that doesn't leak oil I can look to MIA RESCUE and feel it at least spotlighted some good people who risked everything to help others. That's the message I hope you take away from the book.

Finally, there's this: by buying my own book I will eventually receive a royalty...eh, about a quarter...before taxes...which should tell you something about the writing life. Hmm? Eight or nine more books sold and I'll have enough for another quart of oil.

As I read this story I had to stop every so often to remind myself that this really happened and that these are real people. It is an amazing story and one that will be with me for a long time.

I would have given this book 5 stars, but Kregg makes me out to be more heroic than I really was. Fact is, I would have gone looking for the team if I had been told to, but I was happier than hell that I wasn't! There was a huge storm in the area that night and I had a really bad feeling about flying around in it trying to make radio contact with the team. Using my simple logic, if they were okay, they would still be okay in the morning when the storm passed. And if they weren't okay, increasing the body count by 5 wan't going to help either. Kregg, if you read this, please contact me.

My wonderful father, Ed Beal, passed this book along to me many years ago to read. I must say, this book is heart touching and it really opened my eyes to what my father and others faced during the vietnam war. Acceptable Loss is another great book and i'm looking forward to reading "Very Crazy G.I."

I grew up with the leader of the incursion and I don't think any of this has had "literary license". In High School, Dev was a wrestler and fierce competitor. He was consistantly demonstrating his leadership abilities. It was in his blood. His Dad and Brother were leaders as well. This book does him justice. He has been and will be missed by all that knew him.

I think that this a very god book, a series of short stories about the vietnam war, one or two off them are perhaps " non-confirme-able", but who cares, just as long as it is a good storie.

I very much enjoyed the R-R storie to Thailand; revenge is to be enjoyed cold.

Also the story about marine SGT Henderson, that died and diden't

send chills up and down my spine.

Kregg has a way with frases and words, especialy his funny and self-ironic way of decribing himself and his conversion with all those who contributed stories to his book, he is very much the

Wiseguy he always describes himself as.

I can highly recommend this book to anyone.

Keep up the good work !!

The book took me back ,to that day ,that will stay with me for the rest of my life.Kregg did a very good job of what really went on that day,June 17,1970.Kregg has a talent of letting the readers experience the sights ,sounds and the smells of the jungles in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.If the readers want to experience the young,raw courage of ground troops during the war, read this book.

Kregg Jorgenson has written the true account of the events surrounding an ill-fated, five man Ranger unit that went missing in action during the 1970 incursion into Cambodia. Jorgenson, part of the rescue mission to find the survivors, has pieced together the story from a number of eyewitness accounts and from official documents.

The action which sets up the book: On June 17, 1970, at 1650 hours, Team 5-2 of the 1st Cavalry Division's Long Range Reconnaisance Patrol (LRRP) detachment met with disaster while skirting a large North Vietnamese Army unit. Fired upon by the NVA regulars, the LRRP team leader (SSG Deverton Cochrane) sacrificed himself by laying down a base of automatic fire directly inot the enemy positions so his team could break contact. Team 5-2 attempted to report "contact" but the radioman was wounded by a grenade and the team's PRC-25 radio shattered by a bullet. Another machinegun bullet passed through the radioman's collarbone before lodging deep inside his chest. The team medic was struck in both legs by the same fusillade. Both Cochrane and his assistant team leader received fatal wounds. The three remaining Rangers were unable to find the assistant team leader's URC-10 emergency backup radio. SSG Dwight Hancock, the team's rear scout withdrew, dragging the two wounded Rangers into the jungle.

With Hancock carrying the medic and the radioman struggling to keep up, the survivors searched for a suitable spot to hide from the NVA. Hancock cached his two wounded teammates in a clump of elephant grass and set off alone through the jungle for Fire Support Base David. Armed only with a knife, Hancock would have to exfiltrate a division of angry NVA to get help -- and he had to do it before morning. Even if the wounded Rangers escaped detection in the night, the NVA would certainly find them in the morning... The rest of the book details the combat operations to find and rescue the survivors ...

According to Jorgenson, MIA Rescue should not be construed as the official version of what happened. But in the words of a helicpter pilot who took part in the rescue, "The trouble with the official accounts is that they're always too cut-and-dried, too black-and-white to really understand what happened." He told Jorgenson, "When you tell the story do us all a favor and make it breathe."

The style and pace of Jorgenson's narrative showcases the engrossing actions of the main participants. In MIA Rescue he presents a panoply of characters so rich it would make for a good Hollywood portraylal of elited units during teh CVietnam War. orgenson himself is a characther in the book ond one of the well-kno0wn "legens" of the 1st Cav. His doppleganger in teh book is "The Wise Guy" a young (19) "shake-and==bake buck sergeant -- but already a battle-hardened combat veteran, being a former LRRP with Hotel Company, 75th Rangers.

Although he's too modest to tell the story, a television news crew immortalized Kregg JOrgenson in 1st Cav history and on film as "The Sergeant Who Likeds to Walk Point." As he walked point for his uniton the very day they were being filmed, Jorgenson spotted an NVA ambush and was able to engage the enemy as AK-47 bullets tore through both of his legs. Jorgenson received a Silver Star for gallantry and a Purple Heart. Besides MIA Rescue he is the author of several other books to include the best-selling, Acceptable Loss: An Infantry Soldier's Perspective, The Ghosts of the Highlands: 1st Cav LRRPs in Vietnam; Very Crazy G.I.: Strange but True Stories of the Vietnam War; as well as novels such as Stalking the Dragon (Vietnam special operations) and Clubs are Trumps: the Road from Plum Rum(Civil War).

MIA Rescue has the feeling and emotion that the anonymous chopper pilot wanted to see. Jorgenson delivers on the pilot's desire to "tell the story ...and make it breathe."

Rob Krott, author of SAVE THE LAST BULLET FOR YOURSELF: A Soldier of Fortune in the Balkans and Somalia

A great story about the fateful mission of a LRRP team. While I enjoyed reading about the story the book drags along when the author takes leave of telling the details of the mission and subsequent rescue by the Apache Troop, and gives you related information about the soldiers (kinda like developing their character or setting the table).

Understanding the need to make the entire mission and rescue story sufficient length to put into a book that would sell... it makes sense.

Reading about the mission and rescue is gripping.

As someone who has read about 18 Vietnam War books, some by this author and others, I rate the book overall an average read, but the account of the mission and rescue are very good.