Xray His Mark

The Bait: Commissioned officer in a non-combat branch of the United States Army. The Baited: College graduate about to be drafted. The Switch: Close all officer candidate schools except Infantry, Armor, and Artillery. During the height of the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army resorted to a bait-and-switch scam that recruited thousands of unsuspecting college graduates into its combat ranks. This is the story of Marc and Eliot who join to become signal officers but are switched to the infantry, a misfortune that turns their beloved diplomas into one-way tickets to the jungles of Vietnam. Finding uncertainty in a certain war, they manage to avoid the most dreaded duty—point man in an infantry company. Eliot re-ups to become a journalist and write military propaganda in Saigon, while Marc lucks-out and becomes a company clerk in base camp. But when Marc comes face-to-face with the company's point man, he sees something compelling and can no longer sit idle on the sidelines. This is a story about survival, not only on the battlefield, but in the mind of a soldier who doesn't know why others always die in his place. Xray in the phonetic alphabet stands for the letter X, but for Marc Doria, it is a lot more than just his call sign. It becomes an x-ray of his brain, the title of his diary, and the means of his survival.