Operation Buffalo: USMC Fight for the DMZ
As vivid and involving as his other unit histories of the Vietnam War (e.g., Into Laos , LJ 9/15/86; Battle for Hue , LJ 3/15/84), this volume takes the reader into a well-planned and -executed ambush of Bravo Company south of the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone--the Marines joked that it stood for "Dead Marine Zone"). North Vietnamese forces had carefully plotted artillery points in the area and then wore captured Marine gear to confuse their victims. A third of Bravo was lost in just a few hours, and when reinforcements were helicoptered in, they came under deadly artillery fire. Their objective, reclaiming their dead, went on for two more days and more casualties, and on July 14, 1967 when the operation was declared completed, everything was (tactically) the same as before. The courage, fear, sacrifice, and pain are all here in an unsentimental style that works better than heroic blood-spilling tales ever could to describe the terrible excesses of combat. This is Nolan's best yet.- Mel D. Lane, Sacra mento, Cal.Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.