Amazon.com Review
For a visceral description of the Vietnam War, nothing can be more authentic than the voices of the men who fought it. Seventy-seven soldiers, from grunts to generals, recount their impressions of the war. Shocking details have embedded themselves in these men's minds. Their intensely personal descriptions, colored by terror and often an understated heroism, tell us what it was really like to fight in the streets and jungles of Southeast Asia.
The book's creator is Ron Steinman, NBC's Saigon Bureau Chief during the Tet Offensive. It comprises six sections: the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, a large-scale ambush by North Vietnamese regulars in 1965; the siege of Khe Sanh; the Tet Offensive; the "Secret War" in Cambodia and Laos; the air war; and the fall of Saigon. By focusing on specific aspects of the conflict, Steinman gives the book a structure and provides opportunities to see events from several viewpoints, from helicopter pilots trying to find downed colleagues under heavy fire to the men being saved. A total honesty characterizes these interviews--men facing death had no time for anything else. Some exulted in the killing, but the greater impression is of qualities such as empathy and unquestioning loyalty to one's buddy. The extraordinary experiences recounted in The Soldiers' Story molded the rest of these men's lives, and they know it. The companion to the ABC television series, Vietnam: The Soldiers' Story, this oral history makes an extremely powerful and moving book. --John Stevenson
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Veteran newsman Steinman was NBC's bureau chief in Saigon from 1966 to 1968. His continuing interest in the war led to his involvement in the production of the Learning Channel's The Soldiers' Story (to be rebroadcast on July 23, 1999). This book, a collection of oral interviews with veterans, is the written accompaniment to that TV documentary. Readers will be on the edge of their seats as they learn the details of war presented by 77 combatants representing all four branches of the armed forces, as well as by men who took part in the "Secret War" in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The book's six chapters include details of the fighting in the Ia Drang Valley, the siege of Khe Sanh, the 1968 Tet offensive, the air war and the fall of Saigon in 1975. Readers can thrill to the harrowing rescues of downed pilots, suffer with POWs brutalized in North Vietnam, share in the chaos of battle when the enemy is so close in the jungle that hand-to-hand combat occasionally breaks out, go with small teams of men working behind the lines and feel sorrow when a comrade is killed. This is, quite simply, a powerful book that brings to life the triumphs and tragedies experienced by American soldiers in Vietnam. Then-and-now photographs of each contributor are spaced appropriately throughout the text. This excellent compilation of oral histories belongs on every Vietnam bookshelf.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
