Red Plateau

two former enemies meet by accident and become close friends. one of the friends, a former north vietnamese soldier, asks the other, a former united states marine, to write his story. the story follows a path of extreme hardship and sadness as it tells of life in french colonial Indochina and the growing dissent of a people wanting to be free of french, japanese and finally american occupation. the soldier is conscripted into the army and spends over nine years fighting in what was south vietnam. the prose is poetic and paints with word pictures the futility and frustration conjured from close combat in rain forested mountains.