Hard Chargers from the Sky: A passage through the Vietnam War (6 1/2 ton guns dropped into battle)

Hard Chargers from the Sky deals with one of the riskiest—and craziest—airmobile artillery operations in military history.

Lieutenant Ryan "Rye" Enders arrives in Vietnam unassigned and selects a rear support First Cavalry artillery unit. He's dead wrong! Armchair generals in Washington have devised an experiment, to drop his 6 1/2 ton guns and 127 men on the North Viet Army—a desperate gamble to win the war. Each mission from the sky has less chance of survival as Rye lifts his battery into brutal battles against the NVA, Russian tanks and artillery.

In the battle to retake Hue in the Tet Offensive, his guns fire just feet in front of the American troops as the retake Hue building-by-building,and leave the city in ruin. He drops his guns on the North Vietnamese Army and takes-on thetroops, artillery, and tanks in the battle for Khe Sanh. He and Jimmie volunteer to return to the abandoned marine base in Khe Sanh under siege to pull the artillery out and save two marines left behind--no man left behind, and become the last Americans standing. Three weeks to his departure date, he airlifts two guns and twenty-seven men thirty-seven miles inside the enemy stronghold of A Shau, the "Valley of Death" in a suicide mission. Will they make it out?

He and a triage nurse find love as "damaged goods".

Under Attack from his own air force, exposed to Agent Orange, he must reconcile the killer he's become and the futility of war.

The dialog and actions are real, as experienced by this author in Vietnam, September 1967-8. He served as a Lieutenant in the U.S Army. From September 1966-November 1967 he was an Instructor of Gunnery at the Artillery and Missile School, Ft Sill Oklahoma. He served in Vietnam September 1967-1968. During September-November 1967 he commanded the Battalion Fire Direction Center, 1/30th Battalion, Vietnam as a 2nd Lieutenant. During November 1967-September 1968 he commanded the Alpha Battery Guns, 1/30th Artillery, First Cavalry Division as a 1st Lieutenant and Executive Officer. He was awarded two Bronze Star Medals with Valor, a Bronze Star Medal for Meritorious Service, and The Vietnamese Cross Of Gallantry with Silver Star from the Vietnamese Government. In addition, his unit earned a number of citations. He is a surviving victim of Agent Orange. He holds a degree in English from St. Lawrence University with a concentration in creative writing, and has pursued graduate work in law and economics. He has held executive positions in information systems with major corporations and has published numerous business articles. Hard Chargers From The Sky is his first novel. He has begun work on a second novel, Overboard On The Taconite Express.