My Dying Breath

Three boys from Louisiana join the Marines to fight in Vietnam where their beliefs, values, and sanity are put to the test when the horrors of war place them in the path of brutal NVA Colonel Pham Van Bui and a sixteen-year-old Vietnamese soldier driven by vengeance. Original.

Bernard A. "Ben" Reed has been a journalist in south Louisiana for the past 27 years. He currently is the assistant state editor at The Advocate newspaper in Baton Rouge, where he has worked since 1990. He has also worked as managing editor at four Acadiana newspapers: The Jennings Daily News (1975-79), The Eunice News (1979-84), the Ville Platte Gazette (1984-85), and The Abbeville Meridional (1985-90). Born and raised in Eunice, La., Ben is the son of Rosemary Bergeron and the late Curry Reed. He is married to the former Clarese Soileau of Ville Platte and they live in Baton Rouge with their three daughters, Lesley, Allison and Kayla. Ben enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps after his graduation from St. Edmund High School in Eunice in 1968. He trained at the MCRD in San Diego before embarking for South Vietnam in March 1969. As an 0311 "grunt," he served with Kilo Co., Third Battalion, Ninth Marines of the 3rd Marine Division. He was wounded in combat in June 1969 while on Operation Utah Mesa near Khe Sanh in Quang Tri Province. Upon returning home in 1970, Ben enrolled at LSU and was graduated from the LSU School of Journalism in 1973. He has since earned more than 30 writing and editing awards from the Louisiana Press Association. He is an ardent LSU football fan. My Dying Breath is his first novel.