Soldiers Story - Hardcover

Steinman, Ron

3.82

102 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1575001020 ISBN 13: 9781575001029

Publisher: TV Books, 1999

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Seventy-seven veterans from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines describe their experiences in Vietnam, including jungle warfare, bombing runs, rescue missions, and years in prisoner-of-war camps

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

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

From the Publisher:

10 1.5-hour cassettes

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.