Acceptable Loss

Informationen zum Autor Kregg P. J. Jorgenson Klappentext In just ten months in Vietnam, he was overrun, shot up, but not underworked-he survived fifty-four missions as point man. He has one hell of a story to tell. You didn't get into the Rangers without volunteering, and you didn't stay on point unless you liked it. But after watching most of his buddies die in a firefight when his LRRP team was overrun by the NVA, Kregg Jorgenson volunteered to serve on a Blue Team in the Air Cavalry, racing to the aid of soldiers who faced the same dangers he had barely survived. Whether enduring NVA sapper attacks, surviving "friendly" fire, or landing in hot LZs, Jorgenson discovered that in Vietnam you never knew whether you were paranoid or just painfully aware of the possibilities.CHAPTER ONE   BIEN HOA, VIETNAM   As I stepped from the plane, it wasn’t the sudden rush of heat or humidity that immediately caught my attention. It was the applause! Off to one side of the airbase terminal, several hundred gaunt, tanned, and laughing GIs wildly applauded our arrival. That is, the loosely assembled audience was applauding the arrival of our plane—a plane that when refueled would take them out and away from the Vietnam War. We were simply an added attraction.   Grabbing my duffel bag from the cargo area, I followed the other new arrivals to the terminal, running the gauntlet of catcalls and comments from the soldiers who’d soon be shuttling out of the war zone.   “Fucking new guys! Cherries!” howled a veteran, a thin, sharp-faced soldier who then pointed to our new, dark green jungle fatigues that still smelled of the mothballs they’d been stored in only a few days before. Pinching two fingers against his nose he added, “Shew! They even smell new!” Finally, there was one ringing editorial from another soldier that caused many to laugh and shake their heads knowingly. “Good luck, assholes!” he said. “You’re gonna need it!” Luck? Sure, why not? Hadn’t the drill sergeants and training officers back in the States said we’d need training and luck “in the Nam” and that all of the training in the world wouldn’t mean a thing unless Lady Luck was on our side? God, too, for that matter? Then didn’t they smile, saying there was no such thing as luck and that God probably didn’t really want to get involved in this nasty little mess anyway?   To many veterans, the war seemed to be an inside joke, and we new guys always seemed to be part of the punchline. After all, we were the latest source of entertainment. So, with sweat beading our foreheads and spreading out at our armpits and lower backs, we grinned as though we really understood the jokes—or simply realized there was nothing to laugh about.   Facing the Viet Cong I knew would be easier; they’d only try to kill us. However, unlike our welcoming party, they’d probably leave us a little more dignity.   Shrugging off the insults, I followed the other “new meat,” under the ushering of a bored and mildly agitated master sergeant, into the cool shadows of the terminal holding area, where we were told to sit and wait for the transportation that would take us to the replacement station to begin our in-processing orientation. At nineteen, I was anxious to begin fighting. Like the others, I was also tired and surprised by the surroundings; the eighteen-hour flight with its stopovers in Alaska and Japan had taken its toll. Any momentary surge of adrenaline at finally being “in the Nam” gave way to protracted weariness. All I really wanted to do was get processed in, get assigned to a unit, and begin saving a people and a country, both of which I knew little about. Not that it mattered. I’d save them in spite of myself.   The tour of duty for the average army infantryman was exactly 365 days—one calendar year—and the clock was officially ticking, but for now, like so many other times in my brief army career, ...

Product details

• Authors: Kregg Jorgenson, Kregg P Jorgenson, Kregg P. Jorgenson
• Publisher: Presidio Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 23.09.1991
• EAN: 9780804107921
• ISBN: 978-0-8041-0792-1
• No. of pages: 256
• Dimensions: 106 mm x 174 mm x 17 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Non-fiction book