Col. Fitz-Enz's account of his time in Vietnam is a very entertaining look at a seldom-explored profession within the Army- that of a communications officer. While the Colonel started out as a photographer -not your typical career field for the army, but certainly a good one -his experience as first a platoon leader then company commander gives us a small look at what it was like back then; funny how some things have yet to change. His book is not set in a strict chronological order, but you get a feeling of how events transpired and their effect on his career. I highly recommend this book for those who have been or are contemplating careers as Signal officers.

As a Signal Corps Lieutenant, I read this book out of both interest and a desire to learn more about the Signal Corps' role in Vietnam. I was not disappointed. Fitz-Enz is witty, descriptive, and full of lessons and vignettes. Fitz-Enz focuses mainly on his days as a Lieutenant and Captain, and any officer of any branch of the Army can learn a great deal about creative leadership. I commend this book to any company grade officer who wants to learn about Vietnam from a different perspective, and urge you not to shy away from it if you are not a Signaleer yourself...you will be pleasantly surprised. Col Fitz-Enz: Write more!

A compelling read that I couldn't put down. He ranges back and forth across the soldiers, generals, his family and his personal reactions to his field experiences during two tours in combat and several other interesting general staff assignments. We feel the humanness of the army, the frustrations and the triumphs of soldiers and officers trying to do their jobs. His narrative cruises through his career with a smooth flow of technical challenges and human issues written in a straightforward, nontechnical style. A great little book. I hope Fitz writes more.

The book provides are very thorough accout aobut the tactics employed during the war and the battles that resulted. The level of detail is tremendous and the book is well written. However, I was hoping for a more thorough examination of the sociological effects of the war, particularly here in the US. Maybe there is another book that I can read for this.

Being 22 years old, I wasn't even born when the Vietnam war was going on. Nevertheless, something about it has always captured my interest, and I try to read several books a year regarding various aspects of Vietnam. I did not feel that my historical knowledge of the subject was up to par, so I purchased this book with hopes of filling in the gaps. I'd say it performs nicely. It gives an excellent overall review of the war and everything leading up to it. I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to refresh themselves on the general history of America's involvement in the Vietnam war. I have since purchased other books focusing on more specific aspects of the war, but this book has served as a nice launchpad from which I formed a general understanding of Vietnam.

It is a rare book that can effectively summarize a long war and a longer historical process in a short space, yet this book does so with gem-like clarity. It is also extraordinarily evenhanded--a great accomplishment given the depth of feeling surrounding the war. The text weaves various perspectives into the narrative so well that I always felt unimpeded by bias and appreciative of its broad objectivity. The author keeps the larger focus on the main political and military issues which shaped the war yet always includes enough detail to give a strong sense of what was taking place both in policy circles and on the ground. The author has cleary mastered a great deal of material and keeps to the facts, yet through it I was deeply moved. I think there is a subtle tone to the book of compassion for human tragedy that makes it not just highly readable but important to all of us who struggle to understand human events, and particularly this war.

From fallen comrades to gorilla tactics this surrealistic juxtaposition of guts and gum keeps the reader spellbound amid the characture like expo-say of the Vietnam War's artistic soft under belly.

I couldn't put this book down once I started reading it. I became totally enthralled by the ups and downs experienced by the author. There are no winners in war & this book is a very timely piece with all that's going on right now with Iraq. Great Book!!!

If you're in the right spot, war is strangely academic:
headquarters planning sections marking sector overlays
morph on cue into slick sales teams at press conferences
in Saigon,crisp of uniform and of certainty that the war
is won; the poor devils can't hold out much longer: just
look at this chart....

Rick St John walked the walk in a different Vietnam,
and his class (West Point.'66) and the soldiers they
led, paid a butcher's bill. This is war in the field,
war at the sharp end. You eat out of cans, your only
shelter a poncho that doubles as a burial shroud and
you're the one who knows it, a young lieutenant, but
very quickly, a commander, "the old man," that these
others, these brave, scared, doomed teenagers, look
to for salvation. And you can't ever tell them the
doubts that assail you; the weariness; the aching sense
of loss.
Read this book and you will know.

I'm proud to be able to say that I my unit supported the 1st and 5th Marines in this historic battle.

The battle would make a great movie. I would love to see Stephen Speilberg tell this story on film.

The book was outstanding, I loved it

Like a Time Machine, Fire in the Streets catapulted me 31 years back into the battle for Hue City. Eric Hammel's account is a historical, vividly accurate account of what every Marine would surely describe as their time in hell. It certainly was mine. Mr. Hammel's research enabled me to know the why's and the where's of my unit's activities, and gave me a much broader understanding of what the grunt Marine accomplished in the month long house to house fight. This is an excellent book!

Dennis Freed, Lima 3/5 WIA 2/24/68 - Hue City

I was one of those corporals that Eric Hammel mentions on page 303 who served as a platoon commander of Bravo 1/5. Mr. Hammel has meticulously constructed a book that is an enjoyable read and an important one for everyone who wants to understand what it was like to participate at the front line. It is, I believe, an important body of information in the history of the war in Viet Nam.

Hue was a unique battle in Viet Nam and "Fire in the Streets" is the best, most informative, most complete, and, from what I know, the most accurate description of the events before, during and after the event. I say this from the perspective of someone who not only lived the battle but has read every book on the subject that I can find. I think any student of this war can better understand the grunt's perspective of Hue and Viet Nam after reading this book.

I need to point out, however, that Lance Corporal Paul Cheatwood (page 286) was a mortarman with Bravo Company, not Charlie. I was his squad leader at the time of the ambush described. I had passed through the ambush when the machine gun opened up and I was forced to take cover between a dead pig and a concrete wall about 24 inches high. Everytime I moved I could hear bullets thudding into the pig and bouncing off the concrete. I had taken bullet fragments in my hand and one of my associates, for reasons that escape me, popped a CS (tear gas) canister upwind. I was considerably distressed by my situation and not coming up with a plan when I heard Cheatwood yell, "I see them!" He stood up firing his M-16. When it ran out of ammo he picked up another M-16 and walked deliberatly toward the ambush firing into the soldiers there. When the second M-16 ran out of ammo he pulled two grenades off his vest and threw them into the building. When they exploded he leaned in with a .45 and made certain that they had gone on to their reward.

Further, and more incredibly, Cheatwood didn't lead a patrol, as outlined on page 289. As the rest of us dragged the wounded to safety he gathered up all of the hand grenades he could carry and went BY HIMSELF, on his own initiative, behind enemy lines and personally inflicted some serious damage on the NVA. His courageous actions and self-sacrifice bought us enough time to get our act together.

The ambush put us in a very precarious position and, had the enemy counterattacked, we would easily have been overrun. I believe they didn't because of Cheatwood's one-man assault. Several of us put Cheatwood in for a Congressional Medal of Honor and I am, to this day, chagrined that he did not get it. Paul Cheatwood suffered permanent, grievous disabilities from the injuries that he suffered that day. I personally believe that he was denied the Medal of Honor because he was an enlisted man recommended by enlisted men. He deserves everything the Medal of Honor represents and it is a great shame that he did not get it.

One way or the other, the men of Bravo 1/5 owe Cheatwood a great deal.

However, this is about "Fire in the Streets." I am personally grateful to Eric Hammel for his book. It provides a level of recognition and dignity to those of us who fought in Hue and I urge anyone who is reading this to read the book. It's complete, its well done, and its important.

Mark Mead (former sergeant, USMC Bravo 1/5) soltura@hotmail.com

If Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam was born of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, than Ferrandino's telling is Lord of the Flies. The book grabbed me by the head and pulled me face first into the story until I came up at the last page, breathless and wanting more. Don't let the title fool you. This isn't some Don Pendleton macho yarn. This is as real as it gets...told by a man who lived it. Track this one down and read it.

Mr. Ferrandino's book is worth reading. He is not only a great teacher but also a great writer. I had the honor of meeting him when the book first had come out in the early 90's and he was very nice in answering any and all the question's that the students of HCCC asked of him about his expiernces over there, about the book itself and what made him decide to write a story based on it. I bought it for my father since he is a vetern of Vietnam. I happened borrowed it to read myself and was blown away with the story and couldn't put it down. If you want to read a book by someone that was really there, this is a must read.

Ferrandino's oracular insight and prophetic knowledge of Vietnam almost outweigh his estimable literary talents. The author is amazing!

Misleading title. Was not what I expected, but enjoy the book anyhow.

There are many books written by pilots and/or Vietnam vets dealing in their personal experiences. This book, however, is different in two respects. Firstly, as the author points out, most military pilots have an engineering/scientific orientation as as a result, most books written by pilots "feel" as if written by engineers. Lieut. Col. Moriarty, however, is a man of the humanities and his book shows! He succeeds in conveying the profesional aspect of his war together with the humor encountered. The writer and his book are intelligent, sensitive and funny! The second respect is in that this work is devoid of the over-patriotic, gung ho, testosterone OD style that is so prevalent in books written by military men. This book is well worth the read!

This book is excellent! I got it because it has a chapter on my adopted POW, Eugene, and ended up reading the whole book.Those who know of Gene, must get this book. On pages 133-64, it has radio contact with Eugene and AO Chuck Hatch. This book is also very well detailed and is a must read. I'm proud to have it in my book collection.

This book was my first in-depth introduction into the intricacies of the Viet Nam War. I feel like I've only scratched the surface of this monolithic subject.

In the final chapter, Mr. Bui lists the main reasons why the war was so unmanageable and why the US (and coincidentally S. Viet Nam) eventually lost it. The reason listed last (the problems resulting from US intervention) is the focus of his book.

"The South Vietnamese people, and especially the South Vietnamese leaders, myself among them, bear the ultimate responsibility for the fate of their nation, and to be honest, they have much to regret and much to be ashamed of. But it is also true that the war's cast of characters operated within a matrix of larger forces that stood outside the common human inadequacies and failings. And it was these forces that shaped the landscape on which we all moved."

"First...was the obduracy of France, which in the late forties insisted on retaining control of its former colony rather than conceding independence in good time to a people who hungered for it. Second was the ideological obsession of Vietnam's Communists. Not content with fighting to slough off a dying colonialism, they relentlessly sought to impose on the Vietnamese people their dogma of class warfare and proletarian dictatorship. Finally came the massive intervention by the United States, inserting into our struggle for independence and freedom its own overpowering dynamic. These three forces combined to distort the basic nature of Vietnam's emergence from colonialism, ensuring that the struggle would be more complex and bloodier than that of so many other colonies which achieved nationhood during mid-century."

In this book, you definitely will get a S. Vietnamese diplomat's point of view. I was hoping for more on the common man's outlook, the characteristics of the Vietnamese people themselves, and the demographics of the country, but it is not provided at all in this tome. I think this would have done a lot to make the actions of the S. Vietnamese government understandable, if not excusable.

Also, another weakness of the book is that Mr. Bui is always quick to point out American missteps, but rarely expounds on S. Vietnamese imperfections. For example, he writes that one huge problem was corruption. But he never fully elaborates on the nature of this corruption.

The story is easy to read except for when you start to get towards the end. The reason being that no more new insights will be given, and you already know what the disastrous outcome will be.

"In the Jaws of History" is most valuable for Bui Diem's account of his early years in the North, when the "great dilemma in the lives for all nationalists was coming to a head". Nationalists saw collaboration with the French as "repugnant", but then so was "giving the nation ... over to a future ruled by Ho Chi Minh, Vo Nguyen Giap, and the Indochinese Communist Party" who were then murdering nationalist leaders in Hanoi and along the Red River. Giap's role in the purge of the nationalist Dai Viet and VNQDD needs to be kept in mind by those who tend to accept as fact the popular communist myths woven around its leadership figures. "In the Jaws of History" is perhaps best read along with Bui Tin's memoirs "Following Ho Chi Minh: The Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel".

This book offers a compelling and fascinating read. The perspective is one we don't see in most of our histories of the Vietnam conflict: the view of a South Vietnam nationalist who tries to save his nation from the Communists. The absence of bitterness, the appraisals of both the weakness and strength of his South Vietnamese compatriots, his views on the American intervention: all are fascinating.

Overall, this is one of the best books I have ever read about the conflict: it's right up there with Stanley Karnow's well-regarded book.

This is the autobiography of a Vietnamese Buddhist nun who spent her life trying to help people whose lives were devastated by the wars. Because of her close association with Thich Nhat Hanh, it is to some degree an informal history of his activities as well. One of the most interesting aspects of the book is her frustration with the American peace movement. Her life (and his) are both quite inspiring, so this is a challenging and uplifting book. I would happily reccomend this book to anyone interested in Vietnamese Buddhism, the war and the peace movements, or Vietnam in general.

This book presents a side of the Vietnam War that few know about. Most people have seen the horrifying films of the Buddhist monks burning themselves alive in protest to the war. This is but one of the powerful stories that this book tells in depth. It is filled with incredible stories of devotion, resilience, and love.

I totally disagree with the "library journal" review. Not only was this book inspiring, heartwarming, and unique, it told a tale of a woman who defied so many odds by transforming her suffering into the desire to help others move forward into peace. I have read many books by Buddhist scholars before, but none as simple and biographical as this. It was heartbreaking at times; hearing about killings, learning about lost loved ones, learning true love, all of this is conveyed in such a way that you feel you're actually there.

There is no broken English in this book, I don't know what the review is talking about. There's only one typo that I found in the entire book, and it was typing error, not a grammatical one. This book should be on your priority list: if you give it a try, you'll find that you want to keep it in your collection forever. It's a priceless concentration of thoughts that move and inspire you, both to touch suffering and not to despair when faced with challenges.

the reference to dog meat preperation contrary to Lonely Planet's description is from Robert Templer's _Shadow and Wind: A View of Modern Viet Nam_.

The book is well put together but it is a more chatty version of a food guide. In its tone and topic it humanizes the Vietnamese via the vehicle of food removing stereotypes. It covers topics that other Vietnamese cookbooks do not cover very much such as, etiquette and placement of items in a greater meal context. Which for the traveler and non traveler is a very good thing.

However it is NOT a cookbook though it has some recipes. It's main focus is to enable you, the traveler, to experience Vietnamese food on location. Which this book does very well.

I found things somewhat factually wrong - the dog meat section. Though it tries to make you feel better about eating dog meat by saying that the dogs' lives are happy until their quick death -- certain instances of this are not true. Look up Temple's book on modern Vietnam _Shadows and Wind_ in describing how the dogs were beaten to death for tenderizing purposes to celebrate a New Year meal. This method may disturb some people but the ancient Romans practiced similiar methods (see Plutarch's essay on vegetarianism). Anyway, it is a flaw of fact.

This book proves to be a wonderful companion to other books such as, Trang's _Authentic Vietnamese_. It provides, in its small pages,information on modern food, history, and background information on Vietnam in a compact way that is well written and succinct. The photographs and layout are very well done creating a very pretty book. In conjunction with _Lonely Planet Vietnam_ it is indispensable.

For the cookbook enthusiast it is a good item for a collection emphasizing southeast Asian cuisine. It is a good source for background information and gives a more modern slant on things. It is a companion piece but not the main stay of a Vietnamese cookbook collection which it was never intended.

A good book and MUCH better than the Food of _insert cuisine here_ Periplus series.

1) compact and succint; 2) highly informative; 3) maps and amusing anectdotes; 4) good layout and design; 5) few recipes but recipes are very sound;

As a food writer planning a trip to Vietnam (for personal, not food-related reasons), I found this book to be an excellent introduction to the culture and cuisine. I may never cook any of the recipes in it, but it's helped me know what to look for when I go, and to anticipate my trip even more. I thought it was very well-written. Sterling's sense of adventure and good living are apparent in the guide in an infectious, inviting way. He is judgemental about no one but the foreign young people who go to Vietnam to eat fake burgers and wiener schnitzel instead of the light, beautiful food. And the photographs are as compelling as the writing. Buy this book!

Having known Peter Scott just prior to his departure for Vietnam, I could hear his voice in my ears as I read Lost Crusade. Thank you Peter for this extaordinary contribution to literature about the war in Southeast Asia. For those of us who served but did not work directly with indigenous people, this book provides rich detail and insight in to the lives of the individuals we fought so hard to help. Should Peter Scott happen to read this, please accept my personal best wishes and thanks for your contribution. Trace Gordon, 101st. Aviation Batallion, 101st. Airborne Infantry Division 1969-1970

I read 1-2 titles a week and this is one of the most compelling things
that I have ever read. Peter Scott writes with clarity and a passion
for humanity that made me shudder. It is not fair to the rest of the
book to single out any one chapter, but a chapter near the end about a
Pentagon general and Mr. Scott trying to decypher a paper battle map,
crudely and simplisticly describing a battle on the other side of the
world that must have invovled some of Mr. Scott's friends, is one of
the cruelest things that I have ever read. I had to put the book down
for a few days after.

If this book were a work of fiction, it
would fail - not because of the quality of the writing, which
surpasses most fiction and stands with the best, but because an
experience this fantastic is just not believable. Unless, of course,
it is real.

Other top favorites: Project Omega (Acre), Forgotten
Soldier (Sayer)

"Lost Crusade" must be counted as one of the best books ever written about the Vietnam War, and yet it goes far beyond the category of books 'about' Vietnam. "Lost Crusade" is much more than a book about war and for this reason will be valued even by those with no prior interest in the Vietnam War.

In "Lost Crusade" Peter Scott describes his experiences working with native Cambodian soldiers (the Khmer Krom) during the Vietnam War, and the book centers on the relationships he and other advisors built with these soldiers over the course of the War. At the same time Scott offers a broader, historical context of the conflict and the place of the Cambodians within it. This is what makes the book such a strong effort on two levels: it functions as both a historical document of the War from the perspective of one who was involved in it on the ground, and it is a moving recounting of the relationships between men who fought together as told by a skilled writer.

Scott introduces the large cast of characters with the same easy clarity that characterizes the book as a whole, and in a very personal way the reader soon begins to feel some of the attachment for his soldiers that Scott himself must have felt. We also encounter, quite vividly, the brutality of the War itself as well as the barbaric history of the region that pre-dated U.S. involvement. This allows the reader to understand some of the ferocity and drive that motivated these soldiers, and difficult as the material is to read at times, these passages could be seen as some of the most vital and necessary in the book.

The true measure of the book's success, and what makes the book accessible to all readers, is how deeply attached Scott causes the reader to become to his characters. This is largely due to the incredibly effective way in which it was written. The style appears to be effortless, and it is not until one actually stops to consciously consider it that the great care and craft invested in the book's writing becomes evident. Such a style quickly allows the reader to become involved in the personal relationships Scott establishes with the soldiers, and amplifies the tragedy that consumes many of them by the book's end.

"Lost Crusade" is both tremendously moving and also historically important, and it manages to effectively accomplish both its goals. Peter Scott has succeeded in writing a book 'about' war that, like all great books of its type, is really about the relationships that result from people being placed in situations such as war. While historically informative, most people will value the experience of reading the book for what it shows of human nature and human frailty. The book is certain to grip its readers and consume them from its fiery start in Southeast Asia to its bittersweet conclusion on America's West Coast.