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Informationen zum Autor JOSEPH W. CALLAWAY, Jr. grew up in Enterprise, Alabama, and New Canaan, Connecticut. He entered the army as a private in 1965 and, after being commissioned as an officer through Infantry OCS (Officer Candidate School), served in Vietnam from December 1966 until July 1968 as an infantry platoon leader with the 9th Division, a combat advisor to the first Thai regiment deployed to Vietnam, and as a staff officer with the 5th Special Forces. He graduated from Boston University in 1972 and is currently the western sales manager for CYRO Industries, a major chemical and plastics manufacturer. He lives in California with his loving wife, Susan, and has three sons, Tucker, Casan, and Quinn. Klappentext "Before we got to Vietnam, the troops all thought you would be the first lieutenant killed, and in the end, you were the only one left. We were all wrong. You were the best.” —Sgt. Lonnie "Tallman” Caldwell December, 1966: Platoon leader Lt. Joseph Callaway had just turned twenty-three when he arrived in Vietnam to lead forty-two untested men into battle against some of the toughest, most experienced, and best-trained guerrilla soldiers in the world. Callaway soon learned that most events in this savage jungle war were beyond his control. But there was one thing he could do well: take the best damn care of his troops he knew how. In the Viet Cong-infested provinces around the Mekong Delta where the platoon was assigned, the enemy was always ready to attack at the first sign of weakness. And when the jungle suddenly erupted in the chaos of battle, the platoon leader was the Cong's first target. Mekong First Light is at times horrific, heartrending, and heroic, but is always brutally honest. Callaway's account chronicles a soldier's painful realization of the true nature of America's war in Vietnam: It was a war that could not be won.THE EARLY YEARS My father was a young artillery lieutenant in the 81st Infantry Division (Wild Cats) stationed at Fort Rucker, Alabama, and my mother was a beautiful young lady from the adjacent town, Enterprise. They were married on November 13, 1942. I was a war baby from a war marriage, and my father would soon be shipping out to the South Pacific islands. On October 3, 1943, as I sucked in my first breath of Alabama air, World War II was raging in Europe and Asia. Events were also beginning to take place in Southeast Asia that would ultimately lead to America’s role in the Vietnam War and my eventual participation. Ho Chi Minh and his troops, the Viet Minh (the future North Vietnamese Army), fought with the Allies, repatriated downed Allied fliers to south China, and gave information to the Allies on Japanese troop movements. Their actions attracted the attention of the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The OSS sent an American advisory team, code-named Deer Mission, to Vietnam, and the team, led by Archimedes Patti, gave selected troops of the Viet Minh army their first instructions in automatic weapons, demolitions, mortars, field tactics, and the like. My father served overseas in Anguar, Pelilue, the Philippines, and the initial landings on Honshu, Amori, Japan, and fortunately survived the war. When World War II ended, the world split into two distinct philosophical and organizational blocks—the democratic capitalistic countries led by the United States, and the communist dictatorships led by the Soviet Union. Russia, our ally during World War II, became our enemy. These opposing ideological forces engaged in a cold war struggle for global supremacy that lasted more than forty years, until America’s industrial might finally collapsed the Soviet Union’s economy and empire in the late 1980s. Both nations created highly developed nuclear military capabilities, causing the industrial nations to live under the shadow of a potential n...
