Our Time in Vietnam
n/a
by
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I saw this young man as we came through the gate the first time, standing on the stoop of one of the barracks buidings, not too far from the camp front gate. He could have been the Asian version of the Marlboro Man. Cowboy boots, jeans, complete with a large bronco-riding emblem on a western belt buckle, and a western style, long sleeve shirt with various white stripes crisscrosing over a sky blue background. Atop his head was a smart, western style hat and over his eyes was a pair of large, aviator style, sunglases. Shortly after we completed the formalities with Dai Uy Minh and his administrative sidekick, I asked if anybody knew who that guy in the sunglasses was. Sergeant Manuel looked a bittle bit sheepish as he said, "Sir, that is 'Cowboy.' He's your personal interpreter." "You're kidding," I said. He was born to a French Captain Drouin, veteran of Dien Bien Phu, and a Montagnard princess of the Jarai tribe. * * * The body of the aspirant was at my feet, the affects of death already present. We, I, had judged him poorly. He had displayed the spit and polish that one of our Green Berets had taught him at one time. He was Vietnamese Special Forces. Apparently, that was all he needed to show inside the camp. He had saved his display of courage for the battlefield. It was not, I thought, a bad approach to soldiering. We should have reserved judgment until we had seen him fight.
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About the Book
Captain John Corns leads his Special Forces team into the jungles of the Central Highlands of Vietnam in 1963. Th ere is an insurgency, and he and his Green Berets have undergone extensive training for the mission of assisting the Vietnamese and Montagnard people in their fi ght against communist terrorism. What they fi nd is a challenge that resists rapid progress and a cause that leaves destruction and death in its wake. Corns returns four years later as a major and operations offi cer for the Army/Navy Mobile Riverine Force in the Mekong Delta. Th e confl icting military forces are larger, losses to both the insurgent Viet Cong and to American Forces are greater, and the sacrifi ces of men around him beg the question of what will it cost to win and will it be worth the losses. Now a retired Lieutenant General, Corns looks back at those days as a young offi cer to share the worth, to him, of that experience—his time in Vietnam with men like himself.
About the Author
The author and his wife live in western Virginia. They explore the region, collecting information that has contributed to the author’s previous five published books. His next work, a novel he calls The Highland Topper, is set in the town of Monterey, in the mountains of Highland County west of their home in the Shenandoah Valley.