Outside the Wire

This is the thoughtful, action-packed memoir of one American soldier's combat tour in Vietnam in 1970. It opens with a tense ambush patrol and doesn't let up through a year of hair-raising night watches, soggy humps through the jungle, and deadly encounters with the North Vietnamese. The author served as a rifleman, machine gunner, tunnel rat, and demolitions man with the U.S. Army's 25th "Tropic Lightning" Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division. His memoir focuses on the experiences of the men on the ground in Vietnam and the realities of combat, and the result is moving and unforgettable, one of the very best in a crowded field of Vietnam War memoirs.