Boocoo Dinky Dow: My short, crazy Vietnam War

Grady Myers was an artistic but aimless teenager in 1968, when, desperate for troops, the U.S. Army overlooked his extreme nearsightedness and transformed him into Hoss, an M-60 machine gunner. In "Boocoo Dinky Dow: My short, crazy Vietnam War," Myers recalls Fort Lewis, where soldiers were chased for stealing cakes and there could be a fuzzy line between training and torture. He describes the insanity of Vietnam, where an old man carrying sticks posed a moral dilemma and a young man had to weigh the burden of his virginity against the dubious pleasures of riverbank prostitutes. Myers’s explosives-happy comrades in Charlie Company sometimes posed the greatest danger. But, in a dramatic ambush, those same crazy soldiers risked their lives to save his. After the war, Myers went on to an art career. He died in 2011. Read an excerpt and more at shortcrazyvietnam.com.