About the Author

Francis J. "Bing" West served in Vietnam as a Marine infantry officer, and later as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Dean of Research at the Naval War College, an analyst at the RAND Corporation, and a lead CNN commentator during Desert Storm. He is currently president of the GAMA Corporation. A frequent contributor to defense journals, West is also the author of Small Unit Action in Vietnam, and Naval Forces and National Security. His new novel, The Pepperdogs, is available from Simon & Schuster. Visit his Web site at www.westwrite.com

Reviews

Leatherneck Magazine A fantastic, down in the mud and crud book of enlisted Marines fighting to defend a village....West tells of some of the victories and the tragic cost. And he tells it well.
Pacific Affairs Pure Hemingway in the best sense of that characterization....West brilliantly portrays the drama of a war few Americans have known.
The New York Times A vivid and unbiased portrait of one Vietnamese hamlet in the grip of war...Exceptional insight....West has told this story with honesty and without embroidery, while bringing out its inherent human drama.
The Washington Post A minor classic about war.
Washington Post Book Review This is the way Vietnam should have been fought -- by tough volunteers who lived alongside the Vietnamese....It will take the sternest idealogue to remain unmoved by West's perceptive and human treatment of the men who fought it....It's an account of brave men at war in a far country, honestly told.
Charles B. MacDonald Author of Company Commander Unquestionably the best book to come out of the Vietnam war -- human, compassionate, suspenseful, dramatic.
Keith William Nolan Author of The Battle for Saigon and A Hundred Miles of Bad Road One of the small handful of truly great books to come out of the Vietnam war.
Peter Braestrup Author of Tet A superbly honest, readable work that goes beyond journalism to become good literature.

West, a Marine Corps infantry officer during the Vietnam War and later an assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, served 485 days in the village of Binh Nghia as part of a combined-action platoon that fought alongside South Vietnamese local defense troops. He here relates that time and the activity that initially involved 15 marines, of which only eight came out alive. However, they were successful in removing the Viet Cong presence from the area, and a monument erected in 1967 to the marines' memory remains in the village. Peter -Berkrot's strong baritone reads this work with great confidence. He is steady and projects effortlessness in relating the tales of the deadly cat-and-mouse game the marines and the villagers played with the VC. Public libraries and institutions with an emphasis on military history should consider.-Michael T. Fein, Central Virginia Community Coll. Lib., Lynchburg (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.