VIETNAM - THE TEENAGE WASTELAND: A Hippie In a War Zone

by Tom Martiniano

"Vietnam - The Teenage Wasteland. A Hippie in a War Zone" by Tom Martiniano.The author was Why write this book in 2012? His response was "This book actually took ten years to write because of the research involved, but mainly because it was hard for me to write, emotionally speaking. After 40 years of people asking me, 'What was it like in Vietnam?' 'What was combat like?' 'Were you scared?' 'What was it like for a peace loving late-60’s Hippie, drafted, with no desires to go off to war and kill people; to go through the harshest combat that one could ever endure and not only survive but to help lead a decimated company of tattered soldiers to victory against the insurmountable odds? What was that like?" And, the big "What was that war really all about?"People have asked these questions since the Vietnam War started and their quests for the truth have gone on unanswered since then. Not anymore. Finally a book that answers ALL of these questions, and a lot more. I realize that is a big statement, but it is true. It is a rearward analytical look at what American Combat Soldiers experienced so that it not only makes sense to the reader, but it puts the reader right in the boots of a combat veteran.This book is very different than other books in that it is laid out in an informative way to put the reader there, in the terrain, with the hot humid, stifling weather, the green vipers and chattering monkeys - all in breathtaking mountainous terrain in which a company of US soldiers traverse in hopes of not being seen and forced to engage in a fire-fight with dedicated enemy combatants.This book is divided into four distinct 1. "What Was it Like to be there?" The author answers all of the questions such as, "What was the weather like? "What about drugs?" "What about the people there?" "What were the weapons like?" and so forth. Any question the author was ever asked is covered in this section so that the reader totally gets it.2. The story of the Hippies in combat; The author's personal story about learning how to survive in this killing machine while keeping my convictions and principles intact. He starts out being an "FNG" to the point where he ends up running the company and keeping my men alive and safe as possible while kicking the enemy's ass all the way back to North Vietnam.3. Re-entry into the USA was in it's own way, more brutal than the war itself with more hatred from Americans than the enemy had shown us. Whatever morale Vietnam Veterans had left to them was stripped from from them in the airports and on the streets by those who were against the war.4. And lastly - "What was the war about, anyhow?" The author did years of research to find the answers to that mega-question. And he finally did get those answers and they are laid out for anyone to understand in this book.If you want the real skinny on this war, read this book and if you have any other questions, feel free to contact this author at 480-427-8492 ot7tom@gmail.com

335 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[paul gregg · Rating 5 out of 5]

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!

[John lawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Jeryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

[Michele Marsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks for saying how it really was. I was 69-71 Army Nurse Corp CuChi/Danang

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Mark Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

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'.