Fields of Fire (Bluejacket Books) - Softcover

Webb Jr., James H

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1557509638 ISBN 13: 9781557509635

Publisher: Naval Institute Press, 2000

Synopsis

Hailed as the most important novel to emerge from the Vietnam War when first published in 1978, this book launched a spectacular writing career for James Webb that now includes four bestselling novels. A much-decorated former Marine who fought and was wounded in Vietnam, Webb tells the story of a platoon of tough, young Marines enduring the tropical hell of Southeast Asian jungles while facing an invisible enemy--in a war no one understands. Filled with the sounds and smells of combat, it is nevertheless a book about people, an amazing variety of closely observed characters caught up in circumstances beyond their control. It is a powerful work that brilliantly expresses the basic ambiguity of war: the repulsion of war's destruction contrasted with the grisly attraction of war as the ultimate test of survival. Critics have compared this bestselling first novel to All Quiet on the Western Front and The Naked and the Dead, among other masterpieces, for authentically capturing the fury and agony of combat.

This is the real war in Vietnam, told without histrionics or self pity. For many years the novel has been a part of the recommended reading list of the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

They each had their reasons for being a soldier.
They each had their illusions. Goodrich came from Harvard. Snake got the tattoo -- Death Before Dishonor -- before he got the uniform. And Hodges was haunted by the ghosts of family heroes.
They were three young men from different worlds plunged into a white-hot, murderous realm of jungle warfare as it was fought by one Marine platoon in the An Hoa Basin, 1969. They had no way of knowing what awaited them. Nothing could have prepared them for the madness to come. And in the heat and horror of battle they took on new identities, took on each other, and were each reborn in fields of fire....
Fields of Fire is James Webb's classic, searing novel of the Vietnam War, a novel of poetic power, razor-sharp observation, and agonizing human truths seen through the prism of nonstop combat. Weaving together a cast of vivid characters, Fields of Fire captures the journey of unformed men through a man-made hell -- until each man finds his fate.

About the Author:

James Webb, a 1968 U.S. Naval Academy graduate who served as Secretary of the Navy from 1987 to 1988, is one of the most highly decorated Marines of the Vietnam era. He is the author of the bestsellers Fields of Fire and Sense of Honor, among other books.

About this edition

• Publisher: Naval Institute Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1557509638
• ISBN 13: 9781557509635
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 344