I was hooked on this book from the great chapter 1, which showcased the misery of Marine grunt life in Vietnam on the front, in the mud during monsoon.  One guy gets a leech up his urethra and has to be emergency medevaced…yuck! The trials never let up. Bravo Company is put on endless patrol, given impossible tasks (eg. build an artillery site on a remote hilltop with sheer cliffs on either side), short-rationed (“it must have been the company commander’s fault!”) and generally used and abused by superiors not in the field. Basically, every level of command wants to excel and look sharp for their superiors…so ultimately it’s the grunts who get shafted.

2LT Mellas is not immune to glory-seeking. But, “it occurred to him that because of his desire to look good coming home from a war, he might never come home at all.”

There’s a funny AAR where one probable kill turns into six confirmed kills + four probables once it makes its way fully up the chain. Wonder how much of the “official” Vietnam War stats were like this?

The strategy of the war, “to kill as many gooks as possible” lent itself to a feeling of futility among the men. In this story, after securing the Matterhorn hilltop and being chided into bulking up its defenses, the company is moved out for a time, which lets the NVA take over the hill. Later, the same company is tasked with assaulting the same hill. Not because they need the location, but because there’s a small chance they’d be able to trap an enemy regiment. Who cares about casualties; if it becomes a division action then the company losses will look relatively small (reported as “light casualties”) when aggregated across the division, rather than the catastrophic company-level losses they really are.

One character who gets small “screen-time” yet taught me something new was a dog-handler. He had re-upped a few times in a row, out of love for his dog — apparently due to their training, it was nigh impossible to retrain the dogs to a new handler. So, when the handler completed his tour of duty … the dog was put down. They were considered too dangerous to repatriate to the US. So, this guy was staying on duty to save the life of his dog.

Some interesting bits from an interview with the author.

Published March 17, 2026March 17, 2026