by Doug Stanton
First published 2018
Doug Stanton chronicles the ordeal of twelve American soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division's recon platoon during the Vietnam War's most brutal campaign. These young men, averaging nineteen years old and hailing from farms, beach towns, and cities like Chicago, found themselves thrust into combat they couldn't comprehend. On January 31, 1968, 100,000 North Vietnamese troops launched coordinated attacks on thirty-six South Vietnamese cities in what became known as the Tet Offensive. The Echo Company soldiers fought hand-to-hand battles while spending sixty days evading enemy forces. Their nonstop combat forged an unbreakable bond among survivors who lived lifetimes in those weeks. When they finally returned home to San Francisco, they shed their uniforms and walked back into an America that neither understood nor wanted to hear their stories. Stanton draws from extensive interviews, soldiers' letters, Pentagon reports, and battlefield visits with both American veterans and their former Vietnamese enemies to tell this account of young Americans caught in extraordinary circumstances.
Genres: 20th-century, war, military-fiction, non-fiction, biography-memoir, american-history
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, found-family
Setting: San Francisco, Vietnam
Period: 1968
336 pages · Paperback · Scribner
Content warnings: violence, war