Line Doggie: Foot Soldier in Vietnam

Charles Gadd served in Vietnam in late 1967 and 1968 and had experiences very similar to what most enlisted men endured. He describes the mud, blood, leeches, loss of friends, and low morale due to constant harassment by guerrillas. The author, a squad leader with the 101st Airborne, was wounded twice and saw nearly constant action in the Central Highlands. This memoir is a vivid and accurate description of the Vietnam War. “I must explain that this story is written in the first person in order to depict more clearly the horror, fear, joy, and sorrow that practically every line doggie experienced during his tour in one of history’s most unpopular wars. Millions of other stories are even more dramatic than those in this book, and every trooper who carried a rifle and rucksack in Vietnam now carries around in his own mind a book full of stories similar to these. Written some sixteen years after it took place, this story tells how I envisioned the Vietnam War during the late 1960s. I was young and inexperienced and had no doubts that my country was doing the right thing by its involvement in this faraway land. I knew practically nothing about the political relationship between this small country and mine, and merely accepted the fact that “we were right” and “they were wrong” and that was that. Being a product of the post-World War II baby boom, I was brought up hating communism even though I knew very little about it. Serving a year in Vietnam instilled in me the knowledge that communism was truly a reign of horror, and though I still feel our cause was just, I now have doubts and questions that I fear may forever go unanswered.” —Charles Gadd, from the Author’s Note