Perhaps the most accurate story of LRRPs at war
ever to appear in print!
When Frank Johnson arrived in Vietnam in 1969, he was nineteen, a young soldier untested in combat like thousands of others--but with two important differences: Johnson volunteered for the elite L Company Rangers of the 101st Airborne Division, a long range reconnaissance patrol (LRRP) unit, and he kept a secret diary, a practice forbidden by the military to protect the security of LRRP operations.
Now, more than three decades later, those hastily written pages offer a rare look at the daily operations of one of the most courageous units that waged war in Vietnam. Johnson served in I Corps, in northern Vietnam, where combat was furious and the events he recounts emerge, stark and compelling: walking point in the A Shau Valley, braving enemy fire to rescue a downed comrade, surviving days and nights of relentless tension that suddenly exploded in the blinding fury of an NVA attack.
Undimmed and unmuddied by the passing of years, Johnson's account is unique in the annals of Vietnam literature. Moreover, it is a timeless testimony to the sacrifice and heroism of the LRRPs who dared to risk it all.
- ISBN10 0804118809
- ISBN13 9780804118804
- Publish Date 27 February 2001
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 24 November 2015
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Random House USA Inc
- Imprint Ballantine Books Inc.
- Format Paperback (US Mass Market)
- Pages 288
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780804118804