Faced with a 1-A draft classification after graduation from college in the spring of 1968, the author decided to control his own destiny by volunteering for the draft. Soon he was given the one job he most wanted to avoid—infantryman.
This is a foot soldier’s story of twelve long months in Vietnam. Assigned to the 25th Infantry Division, much of his time was spent fighting a guerrilla war along the Cambodian border during the “Vietnamization” program. Day-to-day platoon operations produced dread, fear, bafflement, loyalty, disillusionment and ecstasy among the men fighting and dying in the jungle. The lack of leadership, both military and political, exacerbated the conditions.

Dennis Kitchin grew up in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and is a graduate of the University of Dayton, Ohio. He is the author of several travel books—on the United States, Ireland and New Zealand (upcoming). He lives in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.

Dennis Kitchin
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 216
Bibliographic Info: index
Copyright Date: 2011 [1994]
pISBN: 978-0-7864-6729-7
eISBN: 978-0-7864-8759-2
Imprint: McFarland

Preface      ix
Prologue      1

1. Sentinel      3
2. The Television War      7
3. Sweet Carolina Pine      10
4. Tigerland      20
5. Into the Abyss      26
6. The Wolfhounds      33
7. Nec Aspera Terrent?      40
8. New Year’s Eve      48
9. Black Virgin Mountain      55
10. Reed Revisited      60
11. Topic Lightning      74
12. A Lawyer, a Pirate, a Face      78
13. Rocket City      85
14. Bloodswirl      88
15. A Booby Trap      108
16. Diamonds      113
17 The Fifty Day Hard Spot      118
18. “Just Heathens Here”      131
19. Kolchek      134
20. The Sugar Mill      142
21. Putsch!      148
22. Phuoc Luu      155
23. The Sleeping Princess      162
24. The Trial      164
25. The East Has Come to Call      185
26. Hard Spot Harris      188
27. Kotrc      192
28. Purple Out      196

Military History of Dennis Kitchin      203
Index      205

“The way [Kitchin] expresses his thoughts in this book stands above the norm…[he] writes with clarity and purpose”—VVA Veteran