The boys of '67 Charlie Company's war in Vietnam

Wiest (coauthor, Vietnam's Forgotten Army), who teaches Vietnam War history at the University of Southern Mississippi, concentrates on the human side of the Vietnam War with an in-depth chronicle of a group of men drafted into the army in 1966 and trained together with the 9th Infantry Division, the only division of draftees that was "raised, drafted, and trained for service in the Vietnam War," Weist notes, and thus developed unusually strong bonds. After training in the States, the men went to Vietnam in January 1967 as a unit on a troop ship. Very few other American fighting units shipped out to Vietnam; the overwhelming majority arrived singly as replacements because of the one-year rotation system. In Vietnam, the men of Charlie Company slogged through the worst the war had to offer. The unit lost half its members to death and injury within two months, and too many of the men suffered anew after returning home, battling posttraumatic stress disorder for decades. Wiest spent three years interviewing 61 officers and men of Charlie Company, 4th Battalion, 47th Infantry. He tells their stories well and empathically, especially those of the dozen or so men whose lives he examines closely before, during, and after their service in the nation's most controversial overseas war. Illus. (Sept. 18) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Wiest (history, Univ. of Southern Mississippi) tells the story of the 9th Infantry Division's Charlie Company, an all-draftee unit made up of soldiers from all over the country. The members of the unit all entered the service at the same time, trained together, and went to Vietnam together. After a chance encounter with one veteran of Charlie Company, Wiest interviewed more than 60 others, as well as family members of some who did not make it home, to discover not only the story of this unit in the Vietnam War, but to reveal the individuals and families involved. The author supplements these oral histories with archival research, though he does not provide source notes. VERDICT This is a compelling and intimate look at one unit's wartime experience, filled with loss, excitement, humor, and pain that readers of wartime memoirs will especially want to share.-MM (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.