It wasnt supposed to be this way. Twenty-six-year-old Jack Boudreau is a struggling stringer reporter out of Bangor, Maine, who suddenly finds himself standing inside a cattle truck with forty other members of his platoon. Forced to enlist in the Army due to financial pressures, Jack heads to basic training in Missouri, with only two duffle bags to keep him company. After completing training as an Army journalist at the Defense Information School, Jack receives orders to report to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. His new roommate is Specialist Dustin Boros, who has all the qualities of a successful entrepreneurcharisma and ambition, endless patience, a willingness to take risks, an eye for talent, and an uncanny knack to schmooze. The only problem is that Boros business is managing an illegal cash crop of marijuana. When Jack discovers Boros and his cohorts are operating a drug ring, he has no idea that his roommate is creating an elaborate plan to get him kicked out of the Army. In this gripping military thriller, one man must fight to defend his honor amidst corruption and evil and hes under the gun to solve the puzzle before it is too late.

A look at how combat, culture, and military tradition influenced soldiers’ language in Vietnam from the award-winning, USA Today–bestselling author. The slang, or unique vocabulary, of the soldiers and marines serving in Vietnam, was a mishmash of words and phrases whose origins reached back to the Korean War, World War II, and even earlier. Additionally, it was influenced by the United States’ rapidly changing protest culture, ideological and poetical doctrine, ethical and cultural conflicts, racialism, and drug culture. This “slanguage” was rendered even more complex by the Pidgin Vietnamese-English spoken by Americans and Vietnamese alike. But perhaps most importantly, it reflected the soldiers’ actual daily lives, played out in the jungles, swamps, and hills of Vietnam.

In 1967, the Highway Platoon of B Company, 504th MP Battalion worked out of Pleiku in the central highlands of South Vietnam. Each day the platoon's patrols were scattered over nearly seventy miles of road. The men of the platoon worked with weapons that they had never been trained to use, and they did a job that they had never been trained to do. What they lacked in training they made up for in spirit, ingenuity, and courage. They learned from experience as they did the job, and they did the job well. In the Autumn of 1967 the Viet Cong hit the highland roads hard, and they did not stop hitting them. When the time came to fight, the men of the Highway Platoon did that well too.

An intelligent and athletic young man from an upper-middle-class family and an affluent suburban town in New Jersey abruptly leaves home. At the age of nineteen, he winds up alone in Las Vegas for the winter. In order to bootstrap himself off the floor of the economy, he enlists in the U.S. Army infantry for the enlistment bonus, the promise of college funds, and an adventure. Over the next four years, the young man serves in uniform on three continents. Initially, the new soldier struggles for a year to measure up. Eventually, he becomes a good endurance athlete, a credible young man, and an effective soldier. The Spartan environment and the draconian discipline of the infantry unit impacts the youth. Alarmed by the debauchery around him, he responds by throwing himself into a rigorous self-improvement program. As a coping mechanism, he develops an intellectual philosophy uniquely suited to the infantry. After the familiarity of the army, getting out and pursuing his goal of attending college is a gut check he passes. The solo adventurer travels the Pacific Rim and Western Europe. Then he goes off to a state university in a small rural town. College is not the utopia the high-minded idealist expected. The new veteran is met with considerable hostility in the classroom and animosity on the campus. After four years in the infantry, the man has become very martial, machine-like, and ideological. Issues of identity are manifold. Unforseen readjustment problems manifest. In the isolation of the infantry battalion he has lost contact with the civilian world, and he cannot fathom the values, thinking, and the lifestyles of the students around him. The new civilian possesses few social skills and less knoledge of domestic life. He is a sort of idiot savant living in a world of book, ideas, and concept. Eventually, his mind bends, and his health breaks. Over the next years, the man endures a spiritual struggle to come to terms with his past, accept his present, and plan for an unexpected sort of future. This story explains the following questions: Where does an extremist come from? What forms the mid of an extremist? How is an extremist defused?

An Iraq War veteran’s firsthand account of surviving a deadly insurgent ambush against the 1st Cavalry Division—and battling through the aftermath. It was known as Black Sunday—April 4, 2004, when units of America’s 1st Cavalry Division saw their routine deployment turn into a harrowing and costly fight. Enraged, motivated, and well-armed insurgents crammed the alleys, streets, and buildings of Sadr City. In that fight, a surging mob of militants ambushed one small unit of the Black Knight battalion. The heroic rescue attempt proved fatal for many of the determined soldiers who braved the gauntlet. Cav veteran Matt Fisk—who fought through Black Sunday and survived—gives a gut-level, over-the-rifle-sights view of a short, violent period when one of the safest places in the war zone suddenly turned into a cauldron of death and destruction, leaving eight US troops dead and dozens wounded—only the beginning of a lengthy siege aimed at defeating the Mahdi Army. Fisk’s rugged deployment with colorful and courageous fellow soldiers would result in some serious problems when he returned home, testing his coping skills. He turned to the VA for help—and wound up with the same frustration that plagues so many of today’s returning combat veterans. It’s all here in Black Knights, Dark Days—and it’s all brutally honest. “A gripping, astonishing insider’s account of the April 4, 2004, ambush of a First Cavalry Platoon in Sadr City that changed the course of the Iraq War. With great candor and skill, Matt Fisk interweaves the chaos and adrenaline of modern combat with the continuing battles with PTSD at home. An intense, vivid, deeply personal portrait of men at war that is up there with the very best books of the genre.” —Mikko Alanne, screenwriter and producer, The Long Road Home, The 33

This book tells the compelling story of the average US infantryman in Vietnam. Beginning with conscription, enlistment, Basic Training, and Advanced Individual Training at the Armed Forces Induction Center at Fort Polk (the infamous “Tigerland”), it goes on to explore the day-to-day realities of service in Vietnam, from routine tasks at the firebase to search-and-destroy missions, rocket attacks, and firefights in the field. Weaponry, clothing, and equipment are all described and shown in detailed color plates. A vivid picture of the unique culture and experiences of these soldiers emerges – from their vernacular to the prospect of returning to an indifferent, if not hostile, homeland.

This military history chronicles a time during the Vietnam War when fighting stopped and the 101st Airborne helped those in need during a natural disaster. For three days during the Vietnam War, it wasn’t rockets or artillery that came through the skies, but a horrific force of nature that suddenly put both sides in awe. When Super Typhoon Joan arrived in October 1970, an unofficial truce began. Air crewman faced masses of Vietnamese civilians outside their base perimeters for the first time. Could we trust them not to shoot? Could they trust us not to drop them off in a detention camp? Truces never last, but while they do, life changes for everyone involved. The “typhoon truce” stopped the war for three days in northern I Corps—that area bordering the demilitarized zone separating South Vietnam from North. Then, less than a week later, Super Typhoon Kate hit the same area with renewed fury. As the entire countryside was flooded, the people faced war and natural disaster at the same time. No one but the Americans had the resources to help the people who lived in the lowlands, and so they did. The everyday dangers they faced were only magnified by low clouds and poor visibility. But the aircrews of the 101st Airborne went out to help anyway. In this book, we see how, for a brief period during an otherwise vicious war, saving life took precedence over bloody conflict.