A tiger among us A story of valor in Vietnam's A Shau Valley

Bennie G. Adkins

Book - 2018

"While the rain and mist of an early March moved over the valley, then-Sergeant First Class Bennie Adkins and sixteen other Green Berets found themselves holed up in an undermanned and unfortified position at Camp A Shau, a small training and reconnaissance camp located right next to the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail, North Vietnam's major supply route. And with the rain came the North Vietnamese Army in force. Surrounded 10-to-1, the Green Berets endured constant mortar and rifle fire, direct assaults, treasonous allies, and volatile jungle weather. But there was one among them who battled ferociously, like a tiger, and when they finally evacuated, he carried the wounded to safety. Forty-eight years later, Command Sergeant Major Ben...nie Adkins's valor was recognized when he received this nation's highest military award, the Medal of Honor."--Amazon.com.

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Subjects
Genres
Personal narratives
Autobiographies
Published
New York, NY : Da Capo Press 2018.
Language
English
Main Author
Bennie G. Adkins (author)
Other Authors
Katie Lamar Jackson (author)
Edition
First edition
Item Description
Includes index.
Physical Description
xvii, 206 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map ; 24 cm
ISBN
9780306902024
  • Foreword by
  • Preface
  • Prologue Prey
  • Chapter 1. De Oppresso Liber and the Art of Being Unconventional
  • Chapter 2. Green Berets at Work
  • Chapter 3. A First Look
  • Chapter 4. A Godforsaken Place
  • Chapter 5. The Men within the Walls
  • Chapter 6. Boots on the Ground; Signs in the Jungle
  • Chapter 7. The Gathering Storm
  • Chapter 8. Before Sunrise
  • Chapter 9. Hope and Hell
  • Chapter 10. Another Day of Perdition
  • Chapter 11. Valor on the Ground; From the Skies
  • Chapter 12. Giving Up the Ghost
  • Chapter 13. Last Men Standing
  • Chapter 14. Evading the Ghost
  • Chapter 15. A Tiger's Tale
  • Chapter 16. On the Home Front
  • Chapter 17. No Rest for the Weary
  • Chapter 18. Two Months and Twenty Minutes
  • Chapter 19. Training for Stealth; Returning to Action
  • Chapter 20. On a Mission; A Price on My Head
  • Chapter 21. Life Goes On
  • Chapter 22. A Matter of Honor
  • Chapter 23. Regrets and Lessons
  • Medal of Honor Citation for Command Sergeant Major Bennie Gene Adkins
  • Acknowledgments
  • Index
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

The heart of Adkins's Vietnam War memoir is a blow-by-blow account of a vicious, four-day battle in 1966 in the densely forested and notoriously dangerous A Shau Valley. During his second tour, Adkins and his fellow Special Forces team members-along with Montagnard fighters and South Vietnamese Army Special Forces troops-battled a North Vietnamese Army infantry division that outnumbered them 10 to one. The Americans and their allies suffered heavy casualties at the hands of the NVA, who had help from the Viet Cong and some of the Green Berets' own indigenous fighters, who turned against them. Adkins fought ferociously and fearlessly, killing scores of enemy troops, sustaining several wounds, and leading the other survivors to safety-all against almost unimaginable odds. He belatedly received the Medal of Honor (in 2014) for his extreme courage under fire. Though the prose is plain and undistinguished, the book will be of interest to those seeking tales of the hell combatants went through in Vietnam. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

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