My Dying Breath — Ben Reed

In 1969 in small-town Louisiana, 19-year-old Tuck Richard joins the Marines, gung-ho to serve his country, just like his friends Donnie-Boy Hebert and Johnny Robert. Wet-behind-the-ears Cajun kids, they will be moulded by boot camp into gutsy Marines. Loyal Tuck. Sturdy Donnie-Boy. Good ol' Johnny. No battle too tough, they thought. No mission too risky. Yet in the bullet-riddled jungles and bloodstained hills of a distant land, the winds of war will steer Tuck toward a cunning enemy-placing him and his buddies in the path of the infamous NVA Colonel Pham Van Bui. In the heat and dust of a tiny village, 16-year-old Pham Thuc Trai finds his family massacred. Was it the Americans, or the armies from the north? Driven by vengeance, Trai feels he must flee to survive. But his quest for revenge will lead Trai into the belly of the North Vietnamese Army-and the deadly lair of Colonel Pham. Three Americans. One Vietnamese. Four boys made men by the brutality of war are about to confront a common enemy in an uncommon showdown that will change them forever.