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Title: Nine from the Ninth by Paul A. Newman, Jack Bick, Bob Wallace ISBN: 0-595-25305-9 Publisher: Writer's Showcase Press Pub. Date: 01 December, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4.86 (7 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: A great memoir of the war in Vietnam!
Comment: Most everyone has an impression about the Vietnam War, regardless of how little they really know about it. Unfortunately, the movies by Oliver Stone (Born on the Fourth of July) and others provide the slanted "facts" and distorted perspective that too often define the war for the uninformed. To really understand the war you should first read accounts written by the actual participants and there is no better place to begin than the newly released memoir, NINE FROM THE NINTH.

NINE FROM THE NINTH is not a global perspective of the conflict, but it never pretends that it is. Rather, it is a collection of nine stories taken from the personal remembrances of two former US Army Rangers who served with Company E. of the 75th Infantry Rangers, and a third author, Jack Bick, who volunteered and went on combat operations with Company E as a photographer and writer. For them, combat didn't include the nightly comfort of an air conditioned Officer's Club in Saigon or the relatively safe vantage point of an aircraft 10,000 feet above the jungle. Instead the stories present the personal, close-up views of combat that can only be told by those who have "been and done", and survived.

Jack Bick, accurately observes in "Smart Charlie" that the Vietnam conflict was unique; as opposed to WWII, US leadership wasn't fighting to win, so soldiers generally, including even the elite Ranger's, lacked an overall sense of purpose....their strategic goal became to survive for 365 days, and go home! Along the way, the three authors, Jack Bick, Paul Newman, and Bob Wallace, formed bonds of friendship that outlasted the terror, anger, and hate of combat and survive thirty years later.

Bob Wallace's story of "Staff Sergeant Frost" is a revealing look inside one of the war's most legendary fighting groups, the LRRPs (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols). These six-men, self-contained, voluntary units would deploy for days at a time inside enemy controlled territory to "observe and report". Regardless if an officer was with the LRRPs, it was the senior sergeants like Frost (E-5s and E-6s) that ran the teams. Their reputations were for eating snakes and ravaging the countryside, but the profane and gritty senior noncoms made the teams work, fight, and ultimately survive. As very young soldiers they were called upon to undertake harrowing tasks that brought about sudden maturity. So brutal was the LRRP experience that lasting for three weeks on a team converted a "cherry" into a veteran!

Paul Newman's account of the "Bo Bo Canal" is a gutsy story of the fighting along "a mosquito ridden canal" that ran for 20 miles, and became a "water road" for the VC. Carrying more than 8o pounds of combat equipment the team members would sink so deeply into the mud that walking was often difficult. This uncensored tale isn't for the squeamish but accurately conveys the unavoidable brutality of warfare and how it changed the outlook of the men who survived it.

After Vietnam the three authors left military service and took with them the best and worst of their experiences in Vietnam. The same training and personal skills that helped them survive in combat ultimately helped them succeed in their later careers. Initiative, risk taking, determined individualism and community involvement were common hallmarks as each man became successful in a variety of endeavors.

This is a highly recommended book for anyone interested in real stories of the Vietnam War, and the memoirs of three men who served their country honorably, proudly and well.

Rating: 4
Summary: The American GI's Vietnam: How It Really Was
Comment: I happen to be a good friend of one of the three authors but had never known anything about his Vietnam experience. After reading these stories, it is easier to understand why, 30 years later, it might not be something a former U.S. Army Ranger would want to talk about, even with his friends -- or maybe especially with his friends.

Three men, obviously each quite different, recount recollections of their experiences. If all one knows about war -- the vast majority of us who have never seen combat -- that it is Hell, then these stories give us all we need to know about why this is really so.

The authors pull no punches, make no excuses for the surprising level of brutality. Their texts, surprisingly well-written, take us along on their hunter-killer missions, carefully planned lethal traps, sprung on the Mekong Delta's Viet Cong fighters. They are very close to each other, each life depends on the guy next in the six-man column. Some of them don't come back and we wonder now was it worth it?

But it's not all blood-and-guts fighting. (A vivid description of a beheading left me more than light-headed.) We see some very introspective reflections during the quiet moments, an occasional R&R, the usual intra-squad bitching and brawling.

Little wonder that only 365 days in a high-risk combat unit could have such a lasting effect on the participants.

History is still judging if was worth it. This modest but important addition to that assessment makes its own understated but powerful contribution. Definitely worth the price, and then some.

Rating: 5
Summary: Much Better Than Fiction
Comment: The real Viet Nam. The people, the land, and the Americans who came from all over the U.S. for reasons even they didn't know. The authors make the war real through their own memories--three American Rangers who spend their days on Long Range Recon Patrols--dumped into Viet Cong territory to bate the enemy. The reader is right there with them, experiencing their fears, their doubts, the complexity of an uncertain war, and the simplicity of young men thrown into chaos. This book has an uncanny way of mixing the routine thoughts and actions of American boys with the terrible brutality of killing--often never knowing if the victems were really the enemy. The authors are men who went off to serve their nation in a killing field of great peril. And returned to three decades of silence before telling their stories. The best book I've read on the American soldier in Viet Nam. This is not gussied-up chest thumping--this is the story of three ordinary men forced to become warriors. You're right there with them on each page.