"On Point: A Rifleman's Year in the Boonies, Vietnam 1967-1968, Roger Hayes, Presidio Press
In October 1967, young Roger Hayes arrived in Vietnam for a 12-month tour
as a rifleman with the U.S. Army's 25th Division. The tour coincided with
the most violent year of the Vietnam War for American forces. Now, some
30 years after returning to the United States, Hayes has produced a literate
and thoughtful journal of his time in beautiful, embattled Vietnam. Unlike
many battlefield memoirs that focus on hardship and hardware, this is a
work that addresses the culture of war, and of this war in particular,
through the eyes of an intelligent innocent. The battles are certainly
here, but their accounts contain fresh insights into even the most familiar
aspects of war. As depicted by Hayes, American soldiers attempting to retrieve
the bodies of their fallen comrades are unnerved because the spirit of
the enemy lingers over the battlefield even after the fighting has been
over for a day. Elsewhere, we learn that the Vietcong were rumored to have
dismembered G.I. corpses in order to prevent them from being reincarnated
into able-bodied men who could then become soldiers. Just as intriguing,
though, are episodes recounting the daily lives of American troops in Vietnam,
such as the horrifying and painful "immersion foot," whereby the sole of
a soldier's foot became incorporated into the fabric of his socks or his
boot sole. Packed with details and curious observations, this could easily
wind up on university reading lists for courses examining the culture of
war.
Photos."
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"The year Hayes, a typical draftee, spent in Vietnam saw the bloodiest
fighting of the war, including the Tet offensive. He served with mechanized
infantry (i.e., mounted in M-113 armored personnel carriers) in the 25th
Infantry Division ("Tropic LIghtning" aka "The Electric Strawberry"), which
was heavily committed at Cu Chi and in the defense of Saigon. He saw his
share of fighting, wounds, hardship, and successful R&R, eventually
becoming, through a combination of competence and attrition, the second-ranking
NCO in his company. He comes across as neither rebel nor victim--a survivor
certainly worth several green lieutenants or "shake and bake" NCOs. He
is a solid, sometimes vivid writer who provides, from the user's and sometimes
the target's perspectives, valuable information on many of the weapons
used in Vietnam, and shows consistent respect for the Vietnamese. He has
made a good postwar life for himself. Vietnam memoirs are still multiplying
like rabbits, but don't miss this one. It is way above average."