A riveting telling of the 1965 battle between the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment and the North Vietnamese Peoples’ Army in the la Drang Valley in Vietnam. ( )

Tough going in parts - a bit like Vietnam itself. When I was in grammar school, my best friend for my first two years was the son of a Lt-Col in USAF who was based in England. Years later, when I was visiting Oklahoma, I met him again. I knew he would have been drafted so asked him what he did in the Vietnam War. His elder brother had been a helicopter gunship pilot. He said he had spent his years as an officer in Georgia, conducting funeral details and honor guards at a military airfield for bodies shipped back from Vietnam. As he observed, "There's nothing like doing that in front of grieving relatives for two years to give you a whole new perspective on war." Reading this book gave me a better perspective on what he and his brother were doing in 1966. ( )

freighteningly real. ( )

I enjoyed this book, but at times it was hard to follow what was going on. I am so sorry for all those poor young men who lost their lives for the sake of politics for the most part. The folks in Washington calling the shots didn't know what they were doing. Everyone was ill-prepared for this type of war, and when they knew what they should be doing, their hands were tied by political motives. So sad. ( )

Heart Breaking.