Kindle Edition
Amazon
Amazon.com
Category:
Military
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services LLC
Type: Fiction
Pages: 415
Copyright: Jun 4, 2016
Price: $0.99 (eBook)
This short story collection has the most recent versions of 13 Army short stories that were previously published as separate Kindle eBooks. The stories take place from 1967 through 1973 and present the experiences of five soldiers in Basic Training and Advanced Training, their combat tours in South Vietnam and South Korea, their remaining months of their active duty. They look forward to being civilians again, but when that happens, they discover they are something different, no longer soldiers, but not quite civilians. They are veterans.
In the late 1960s, if you are in the Army and are sent to South Vietnam or South Korea, you find that war is indeed hell, but in very unexpected ways. In Korea, which is supposed to be at peace, the Defense Department says there is a "low intensity conflict," in contrast to the very "high intensity conflict" in Vietnam. Almost every month, North Korean soldiers infiltrate into South Korea. There are firefights between North Koreans and Americans. In Vietnam, you're told, "there is a light at the end of the tunnel." You're still looking for that light, and the Viet Cong are in the tunnels.
In spite of all this violence, the "old guys" in your unit, soldiers who have been in country for several months or only a few weeks, seem to have a lot of time on their hands. They have the time to carefully plan and successfully execute practical jokes on the "new guys," the newly arrived members of the unit. The jokes are highly unpleasant, often embarrassing, sometimes downright dangerous. You're the "new guy."
Another activity favored by the "old guys" is collecting souvenirs. Souvenirs can be anything from cigarette lighters with the name of your Army unit to weapons taken off the bodies of dead enemy soldiers. Collecting souvenirs can also be dangerous.
Then there's the harassment dished out to keep the troops disciplined. You thought you were through with that when you completed Basic Training.
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