"[This book] is ... [an] account of life as a combat soldier in the Vietnam War. Set mostly in the sprawling woods and rubber plantations northwest of Saigon, the author explains what his unit was asked to do and what obstacles they faced, including an elusive but deadly enemy, multiple kinds of booby traps, and antitank mines... The author and his fellow soldiers saw their idealism quickly vaporize in the face of the grim realities of war... [This book] captures how ordinary civilian-soldiers survived an ordeal set in one of the most turbulent times in American history"--Dust jacket.