Ordinary Lives: Platoon 1005 and the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War continues to generate a wide variety of memoirs by the soldiers, sailors, and Marines who served as enlisted men and an equally large number of small unit histories that rely on the experiences of these men to outline one unit's service in a particular battle or period. Ehrhart (Busted: A Vietnam Veteran in Nixon's America, Univ. of Massachusetts, 1995), a Vietnam combat Marine, presents an interesting twist on this formula by following the Marines in his training unit through their wartime service and into middle age, interviewing them in the 1990s. While the work lacks the emotional impact a reader expects from personal accounts, it does provide a glimpse into the lives, motivations, and attitudes of the volunteers of 1966 while simultaneously contrasting this world view with that of the middle-aged civilians assessing their roles some 30 years later. Recommended for comprehensive Vietnam War collections.AJohn R. Vallely, Siena Coll. Lib., Loudonville, NYCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.