Suicide Charlie: A Vietnam War Story
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Book Overview
Drafted in the spring of 1968 from a job as a sportswriter for a small, New England daily, six months later Norm Russell found himself serving in the infantry in Vietnam in an outfit nicknamed Suicide Charlie and fighting for his life against some of the North Vietnamese Army's top units. In a remarkable journey that takes the reader from a time of innocence and protest back in the States to the battle of Mole City where, in the author's words, he makes his acquaintance with the Devil, and then beyond into the despair and depravity of combat, the reader experiences the Vietnam War in gripping and graphic detail, as well as the humor and comradery that helped make it all bearable.
For Russell, an unlikely soldier caught up in a war in which he did not believe, an outsider who grew up in a single parent home because his father committed suicide not long after returning from infantry duty in Europe during World War II, surviving the war meant learning to accept his own mortality, preparing to die, and then going on . . . Suicide Charlie is the true story of the evolution of a naive 19-year-old into a combat-scarred, Universal Soldier whose search for meaning speaks to questions asked by nearly all concerned citizens of the planet in the late 20th century.Format:Hardcover
Language:English
ISBN:0275945219
ISBN13:9780275945213
Release Date:March 1993
Publisher:Praeger
Length:216 Pages
Weight:0.86 lbs.
Dimensions:0.9" x 6.3" x 9.5"
Customer Reviews
3 ratings
Good read
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 24 years ago
I first read _Suicide Charlie_ in highschool and even though I was kinda naive and immature back then I still liked it. The book has real-life characters who's names have not been changed and it tells of the damaging effects of war on a person's psyche, heart, and inner being.
This book captures the reader.
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 26 years ago
I picked this book up from a library. I started reading it on an airplane. Once I started reading it, I didn't stop. I read the whole book at once, because it really captivated me. Russell's descriptions are full of anguish, yet so real. A truly excellent book of a time when all hell broke loose.
This book gives is as accurate as any I've read on Vietnam.
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 27 years ago
This book was the first one I ever read on the subject, having avoided books about the war up to that point. But when I came accross a description of it in a library trade publication, curiosity got the better of me. I served in the same division as Norm Russell, during the same time period. Like him, I served in a mortar platoon. His descriptions of the conditions, attitudes and reactions were in many respects identical to mine. I highly recommend this book to those interested in first-person accounts of combat service in Vietnam during the time period of 1968-69.
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