Outside the Wire

This "wonderfully written" autobiographical account of a Vietnam vet's war experiences "takes the reader to a strange time and place." (Eric M. Bergerud, author of  Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning)   In the summer of 1969, while America was landing on the moon or rocking out at Woodstock, Jim Ross left his home in Oklahoma to enter the U.S. Army. He arrived in Vietnam in February 1970 to serve his tour, first with the armored personnel carriers of the 2nd Battalion of the 22nd Infantry Regiment (the 2/22 or the "Triple Deuce") of the 25th Infantry. Written from the perspective a kid barely out of high school whose mission was to kill communists and whose goal was to survive,  Outside the Wire is a thoughtful, action-packed memoir of one American soldier's combat tour in Vietnam. Ross served as a rifleman, machine gunner, tunnel rat, and demolitions man with the 25th infantry and 1st Cavalry divisions. Beginning with a tense ambush patrol,  Ross doesn't let up through a year of hair-raising night watches, soggy humps through the jungle, and deadly encounters with the North Vietnamese, including such notable campaigns as the Cambodian incursion.