Product Description

For Private First Class Ronnau Vietnam was better than a poke in the face with a sharp stick. Believing Eisenhower's domino theory, he volunteered for the Army and off to Vietnam he went, armed with an M-14 rifle and American Express travellers cheques. And it only took a matter of a few days from his landing at Saigon to finding himself in a modern day Picket's Charge. Every gun out there was on rock and roll. Tracers from both sides flew in all directions. The air around us was supersaturated with burnt gun powder and appeared slightly gray. It was unreal. Each of us was playing Russian roulette and we knew it. The guy to my immediate right let out a groan and fell over after being shot in the belly. A few steps later Sergeant Condor yelped out loud like a swatted puppy as a bullet went in the front of his shirt and out the back. He stumbled forward for a step or two before crashing into the ground on his face. Soon he was back up on his feet again, moving forward and shooting right along with the rest of us. This was absolutely the wildest and most crazy thing that I had ever done in my life. Ronnau remained unscathed for seven months until a bullet found his jaw and he was sent home. After a medical discharge for wounds received in Vietnam, and a lengthy recuperation at Letterman Army Hospital in San Francisco, Chris returned to Southern California. After college and medical school he worked as an emergency room physician and director in St. Louis, Missouri for over twenty years. He is divorced with three children. In 2002 he returned to Long Beach where he now lives and writes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19709 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

Simply Brilliant!
I seem to be in the middle of a vietnam fest, i've probably read 20 odd books this last year... and let me tell you this is one of the best, if not the best, i normally rate a book (wrightly or wrongly) on how much action the person sees and perhaps in this case the author sees a little less action than some of the "sniper" or "special forces" 1st person accounts that are out there, but it is written in such a way that you are there with him on patrol while a column of VC part the grass infront of him and without seeing the wide eyed figure of the author in the darkness pass by unchallenged. And i have to say that its the first book Vietnam book that has made me chuckle so much, its superbly written, and really funny, not special forces funny, 19-20 yr old country boy funny, i loved the fact he carried a M-16 magazine full of just tracer, which he refered to as his "Ray-gun". Towards the end of the book he certainly gets his fair share of action and its superbly detailed with his thoughts at the time. Once again buy this book ...its outstanding!!

A sense of reality.
This book is, in my view, a laymans educational diary re the events of 1967 (hope that date is correct). An easy read with a sobering dose of reality. The author gives what appears to me, to be a 'normal' persons view of the conflict, too young to fully understand the enormity of the risk he was taking, Christopher Ronnau plunged himself into the depths of one of the most horrific situations a person can face and by sheer chance emerged alive, if only just, at the other side. Take this book on holiday, on the train, or to bed for an hour each night, but find the time to read it; it won't change your life, but may alter some of your preconceived views, if only a little. The book itself is a mass print production and as such is not best bound, if anything, this has a sad irony about it, in that the books apparent disposability appears to reflect the attitudes taken to some young soldiers lives. Dispite its tatty state, I will be keeping my copy as I almost feel I have developed a distant friendship with the once young Ronnau.

Truly original perspective
Vietnam 1967, a teenager joins the infantry because he reckons it will be exciting where the action is! This is the beautifully written memoir of a naive young man wandering around the war in a teenage fugue, his observations are often hilarious and sometimes profound, but overall this is one of those rare books that truly imparts a sense of time and place.