SOLDIERS OF A FOREIGN WAR — Charles McNair

"Soldiers of a Foreign War" presents the Vietnam War in all its conflicted complexity. It is told from the enlisted soldiers' perspective and deals with the American and Vietnamese's, North and South, all teenagers, experiences as they leave their families and enter their countries' respective armies.

The story lines follow two American infantry platoons led by sergeants Cado and Eldridge, a three-man NVA combat cell comprised of Chi, Duan and Thuy and Sp. Steve Aiken a medic in the surgical hospital. The action takes place in six months during 1969-70, in War Zone C, northwest of Saigon.

The daily misery of living and fighting in the jungle and rice paddies for these men is unimaginable. The planning, execution and aftermaths of combat operations, is presented in detail. The novel is unique in its descriptions of the wounded and their fates. Most war novels will say, "Joe got hit and was evac'd to the hospital." My book tells exactly what happened when Joe got to the hospital. The variety of destructive wounds required immediate surgeries. That was the function of the surgical hospital but the toll taken on the staff has not been told to the extent that this novel does.