Common Valor

Want to know the difference between a fairy tale and a war story? A fairy tale starts off, “Once upon a time.…” A war story starts off, “Now this ain’t no.…” So there will be no doubt, we will begin this story…Once upon a time, there was Vietnam. U.S. Army Colonel Frank Davis needed a knight-errant for an impossible quest. He chose Jim Anderson. The quest was to perform Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRPs) using Vietnamese troops. If there was a more dangerous job in Vietnam than LRRPs, it was using Vietnamese troops. This put Anderson on a collision course with an implacable foe, a dangerous colonel, and with “the fairest maiden in the land,” Sue Ellen Hagerty, a nurse who was experiencing the horrors of war up close and personal. Of Anderson’s impossible quests, the quest to survive would be the toughest of all.