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Vietnam - The Teenage Wasteland
It is common knowledge that 58,000 young men and women died in Vietnam. What is not commonly known is what it was like there for these people who spent the rest of their lives in this for-boding place. And more importantly what did they really die for?
Another peculiarity is what happened to all the hipies that the Dept. of Defense sent off to the killing fields - how did they fare? Did they fight or were they just being flower children in a combat zone.
Tom Martiniano answers all questions you have ever had about vietnam in this rapid-paced page-turner. Learn the real stories of vietnam in this thrilling tale.
Another peculiarity is what happened to all the hipies that the Dept. of Defense sent off to the killing fields - how did they fare? Did they fight or were they just being flower children in a combat zone.
Tom Martiniano answers all questions you have ever had about vietnam in this rapid-paced page-turner. Learn the real stories of vietnam in this thrilling tale.
318 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 4, 2018
Read this book
As a former soldier my self I can understand what Tom is saying in the book. War is not a nice thing to go through for any one it to be forced to serve? Big up to Tom for coming through it all and telling his story! I enjoyed reading the book very.much ! Hope you do too!
As a former soldier my self I can understand what Tom is saying in the book. War is not a nice thing to go through for any one it to be forced to serve? Big up to Tom for coming through it all and telling his story! I enjoyed reading the book very.much ! Hope you do too!
April 17, 2019
Brilliant read ...
Well paced and interesting story of soldiering in extreme circumstances. The author relates his experiences with an eye for detail both of the war and the relationships within a combat unit.
Well paced and interesting story of soldiering in extreme circumstances. The author relates his experiences with an eye for detail both of the war and the relationships within a combat unit.
November 17, 2017
Hero's
This book rather this writer's experience tells us about poor judgment from leaders and government agents just to get rich with no consciousness about human life . Very sad
This book rather this writer's experience tells us about poor judgment from leaders and government agents just to get rich with no consciousness about human life . Very sad
February 8, 2019
Thanks for saying how it really was. I was 69-71 Army Nurse Corp CuChi/Danang
May 20, 2013
It is a good read, and like all memoirs based on memory has the usual factual errors and "filler" used to connect ideas and stories. As the book wears on the stories become increasingly unbelievable. He has the 82nd making a 1965 jump and taking heavy casualties, when that division never even sent a brigade over until 1968, and in any case never made such jumps.
The author admits being a hippie before he entered the Army, but he never did drugs in Vietnam, and never even tripped on LSD until after discharge? Then as an RTO he finds his name on a VC wanted poster? The tales just can't be so; battalions and companies "overrun" in places were no such actions occurred in the author's timeframe.
Or the dead GI found with an unfinished letter in his hand saying goodbye to his parents, who writes the enemy are almost on him. The story goes on to say that the NVA stripped the GI of his equipment. Were they going to miss something as obvious as papers in his hand when they took everything else? Or maybe after being able to read English they decided the letter was of no intelligence value, but placed the letter back into the GI's dead hand?
The list is lengthy... how about the author's handful of recon patrol GIs attempts to capture an entire North Vietnamese infantry battalion by bonking them on their heads one-by-one as they passed by (presuming the patrol knew exactly where the enemy would walk, and that the entire battalion would not only be in single file, but spaced far enough apart to not know what is happening to comrade #234 walking just ahead, and presuming that the bonk on the head actually cold-cocked the guy instead of killing him or simply tearing his scalp). The rope to tie up hundreds of enemy? Well, that just happened to be found in sufficient quantity in an enemy bunker which happened to be there too.
Well, any one thing can be believed on a stretch, but when you have so many unbelievables in a single story it gets touch to swallow.
I'm a veteran too. And, there's no doubt in my mind that his memoir contains generous portions of fiction. Still it IS good reading. I might also make a good movie script since the characters and situations are certainly up to big-screen standards.
The author admits being a hippie before he entered the Army, but he never did drugs in Vietnam, and never even tripped on LSD until after discharge? Then as an RTO he finds his name on a VC wanted poster? The tales just can't be so; battalions and companies "overrun" in places were no such actions occurred in the author's timeframe.
Or the dead GI found with an unfinished letter in his hand saying goodbye to his parents, who writes the enemy are almost on him. The story goes on to say that the NVA stripped the GI of his equipment. Were they going to miss something as obvious as papers in his hand when they took everything else? Or maybe after being able to read English they decided the letter was of no intelligence value, but placed the letter back into the GI's dead hand?
The list is lengthy... how about the author's handful of recon patrol GIs attempts to capture an entire North Vietnamese infantry battalion by bonking them on their heads one-by-one as they passed by (presuming the patrol knew exactly where the enemy would walk, and that the entire battalion would not only be in single file, but spaced far enough apart to not know what is happening to comrade #234 walking just ahead, and presuming that the bonk on the head actually cold-cocked the guy instead of killing him or simply tearing his scalp). The rope to tie up hundreds of enemy? Well, that just happened to be found in sufficient quantity in an enemy bunker which happened to be there too.
Well, any one thing can be believed on a stretch, but when you have so many unbelievables in a single story it gets touch to swallow.
I'm a veteran too. And, there's no doubt in my mind that his memoir contains generous portions of fiction. Still it IS good reading. I might also make a good movie script since the characters and situations are certainly up to big-screen standards.
April 2, 2013
I have read any number of books about the U.S. ill-conceived and ultimately chastising involvement in and with Viet Nam, from Fitzgerald's Fire in the Lake through David Maraniss's They Marched Into Sunlight. This book, with all its grammatical errors and inadvertent repetitions has the ring of absolute truth, a recounting of the ground war by one who was actually there, under fire. The author was, in his own words, a hippie who got caught up in the draft and sent to Viet Nam in 1969, just after the brutal TET offensive. His simple and straightforward account of his experiences there, including advice on how best to remove leeches from one's skin and how to warm up a can of C-rations using C-4 plastic explosive, can only have been written by a first-hand participant. Highly recommended to anyone interested in this conflict.
Addendum: I have read negative reviews by other Viet Nam vets who state that many of the claims in Martiniano's account are impossible because the dates do not jibe with the actual situation on the ground. Therefore, the veracity of the account is questionable. I doubt that this was a calculated deception; more likely it is a case of good old fashioned American tall tale telling (along the line of the size of the 'one that got away' and the height of 'that wave'.
Addendum: I have read negative reviews by other Viet Nam vets who state that many of the claims in Martiniano's account are impossible because the dates do not jibe with the actual situation on the ground. Therefore, the veracity of the account is questionable. I doubt that this was a calculated deception; more likely it is a case of good old fashioned American tall tale telling (along the line of the size of the 'one that got away' and the height of 'that wave'.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews