Warriors

“The platoon sergeant was lax and didn’t hit his quick release. All he did was sit down. The rucksack was still on his back and held him up in a sitting position. The enemy just riddled him. It was terrible. We watched it and could see him jump every time the enemy fired. There was nothing we could do. We couldn’t get to him.”

Warriors is a collection of first-person accounts from nine guys who walked the walk during the Vietnam War. As you read their stories, you’ll feel the stifling heat and humidity, hunker down in their bunkers or crouch in the jungle as enemy fire whizzes overhead. Warriors will tell you all about the politics that made their mission so much more difficult, as well as the occasional incompetent leader that made their day-to-day survival tenuous. But the narratives are leavened with occasional humor not normally expected in such stories:

“A man in my platoon had a very good-looking wife and she sent him some nude pictures of herself. He was very proud of them and one day he was showing them to some of the other men. One man looked at the pictures and asked him who took the pictures. Suddenly we saw that panicked, dear-in-the-headlights look on his face.”

Warriors is a tense, edge-of-your-seat ride through the horror that was the Vietnam War. These men fought for each other and occasionally with each other. Their stories will make you proud of everything military.

About the author: Ed Nielsen grew up on a farm in Iowa and, following high school, attended DeVry Technical Institute. Although he never served in the military, he spent his entire career working for the Department of Defense. He and his wife Connie are retired and live in Hendersonville, North Carolina. Warriors is his first book.