The average life expectancy of a Marine Corps lieutenant in Vietnam was two months. In this lethal environment, soldiers died in predictable and unpredictable ways. Officers were fragged by their own. It s all horror, says Petrazzolo, now 52, and president of a technology company in Phoenix. Everything is new.
Nothing is the same.
Then you find a place to hide and get on your belly. John Donovan went to Vietnam gung ho. He had joined Navy ROTC at Holy Cross and, as a Navy ensign in 1967, he was ready for whatever Vietnam had to offer. I volunteered to go, he says. My whole reason for going was sort of macho.