Code Word: Prairie Fire: SOG in Vietnam

by Cline Williamson

What do you do when your country is at war, you are thirty miles inside a country illegally, and you are in trouble? Who do you call when you can no longer run and you're getting your ass shot off? You call your Covey FAC and declare a Prairie Fire emergency. You pray he is in range and can receive you. Then you wait to see if the extraction birds and the gunships can get to you in time, and you hope they'll bring TACAIR with them when they arrive. If they do you might survive. Maybe. If they don't then you die with your boots on and go out like a man. That was the way it was in SOG, and at CCN, SOG's northernmost FOB. You either accepted that as part of the job or you quit. There was no other option. That's because it was the most dangerous job of the Vietnam War

669 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 5, 2020

Reviews

[Donna A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Code Word: Prairie Fire

This book hits home the politicians blamed the Vets for losing a war they wouldn’t let them win. It’s why I don’t trust my government. If the Veteran’s Administration is willing to do nothing for our Vietnam Veterans or now the Iraqi and Afghanistan veterans why do we trust our government to help us?

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will admit that I can see how Col. Williamson's choice of how he shared his characters inner dialog annoyed some readers. The same with the repetitive nature of some of it. But get over it, this isn't your standard historical fiction, and what the author repeatedly tries to drive home is that Vietnam wasn't your standard war. What the author does do is try to get you to see what the characters went through, the hell they endured from the enemy, their own government, and their minds.

SOG had a horrid casualty rate, and the story cycles through characters accordingly. And if you think that is a spoiler then you don't know MACVSOG. Walk with these soldiers through a country they weren't supposed to officially be in. See their thoughts and their battles. Understand what gave them PTSD.

The next time you see a Vietnam vet, tell them "Welcome home."

[Reg Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

Excess wording,,,

I left the book because of the excess descriptiveness of the scenes and the use of too many flowery statements just to add to the books’
Volume. Some scenes went on and on and on,,,