Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49210 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 496 pages

Synopsis
The story of a platoon of Marines fighting in Vietnam evokes the ambiguous and gruesome character of the war and contrasts man's realization of war's dangers with his attraction to war as the ultimate test of survival.

Customer Reviews

Couldn't put it down!
A fantastic novel. I usually stay away from military books as they tend to be bogged down in techno-babble at the expense of the story, BUT NOT THIS ONE! From the opening chapter, I was gripped by the tale of three Marines in Vietnam, all from very different backgrounds and there for their own different reasons. Mr Webb, who was a highly decorated Vietnam vetran himself, doesn't patronise the reader by spoon feeding him/her with explanations of the working practises of a M-16 rifle, but instead shows the human face behind a very unpopular war.

Most heartwrenching of all is the reaction at home to the war and the people involved. Highly relevant today with public opinion divided about Iraq, this shows how the troops involved were completely demoralised by negative, and sometimes venemous, reactions from people who had limited understanding of combat.

I could not put this book down until I finished it!

Even if war stories are not your thing, give it a go. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Fields of Fire
Possibly the best book that I have read about The Vietnam War either fiction or real accounts. in my opinion only rivaled by Robert Mason's Chickenhawk. Also worth Searching out are other titles by the same Author.

A superb book and a "must" read
There are many books which profess to be the "greatest novel written about Vietnam", and believe me, I've read a few in my time. Fields of Fire, for once, is a book that lives up to the epithet. Quite simply one fo the best books I've ever read.