Firefight - Softcover

Joseph Ferrandino

3.6

5 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0671667106 ISBN 13: 9780671667108

Publisher: Pocket, 1989

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Firefight is the story of a company of young soldiers, their idealistic, theater-nurtured vision of the glories of war torn away by the reality of Vietnam. Devastating not only for its realism but also for its sincerity.

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From Publishers Weekly:

When Corporal Amaro meets First Sgt. Henry Fluett of C Company, 101st Airborne, he knows he is in trouble. Amaro is a wise guy from Brooklyn, and Fluett is a hard-nosed "lifer" of the old school. This novel about combat in Vietnam should appeal to enlisted men who served in the Army during the '60s and early '70s. For one thing, the language is spot-on; two decades later, it's downright spooky to read about deuce-and-a-halfs, dust offs, hats-up and steel pots. More importantly, Ferrandino depicts both the official war between the Americans and ARVN and NVA/VC, and the unofficial conflict between the single-hitch enlisted men and the "lifer" cadre of career commissioned and noncommissioned officerswho all too often tried to disguise their incompetence with John Wayne rhetoric and "discipline" that amounted to hazing the troops. Ferrandino's version of the Vietnam War is a usefully astringent corrective to the current romantic Rambo cult. His narrative has the crude power of an attempt to exorcize a real-life nightmare.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Amaro is a young soldier on the line in Vietnam. His days and nights are filled with battle, disease, dope, destruction, death, and learning to survive. Individuals drift in and out of his life but most are only names, and those who are more die. While the assaults of enemy and nature are relentless, those of certain higher-ups in the chain of command are even more agonizing to Amaro. Part of his survival depends on coping with at least one of these men. Tough, sad, frustrating, this first novel by a former Vietnam infantryman is another grim view of a terrible ordeal. Robert H. Donahugh, P.L. of Youngstown and Mahoning Cty. , Ohio
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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