Mad Minutes and Vietnam Months

This thoughtful memoir recounts one man's transformation from a glory-seeking, gung-ho Kansas teenager to a weary, twice-wounded grunt who had volunteered for a second tour of duty. Enlisting in the Army in June 1964 at age 17, Micheal Clodfelter was assigned to an artillery battalion of the 101st Airborne Division and arrived at Cam Ranh Bay on July 29, 1965; on August 9, 1966, after having requested a transfer to the infantry, he was assigned to Charlie Company, 2/502nd Airborne, serving in Phu Yen and Kontum provinces. A second injury resulted in his medical evacuation from Vietnam on January 8, 1967.

   Describing the intensity of "mad minutes" (the general discharge of all weapons along a defense perimeter to discourage a potential enemy attack) amid the monotony, exhaustion and horror of war, Clodfelter writes of entering "a territory from which none of us ever really returned."