Blood Trails: The Combat Diary of a Foot Soldier in Vietnam

BAPTISM BY FIRE

Chris Ronnau volunteered for the Army and was sent to Vietnam in January 1967, armed with an M-14 rifle and American Express traveler's checks. But the latter soon proved particularly pointless as the private first class found himself in the thick of two pivotal, fiercely fought Big Red One operations, going head-to-head against crack Viet cong and NVA troops in the notorious Iron Triangle and along the treacherous Cambodian border near Tay Ninh.

Read more

Patrols, ambushes, plunging down VC tunnels, search and destroy missions-there were many ways to drive the enemy from his own backyard, as Ronnau quickly discovered. Based on the journal Ronnau kept in Vietnam, Blood Trails captures the hellish jungle war in all its stark life-and-death immediacy. This wrenching chronicle is also stirring testimony to the quiet courage of those unsung American heroes, many not yet twenty-one, who had a job to do and did it without complaint-fighting, sacrificing, and dying for their country.

Includes sixteen pages of rare and never-before-seen combat photos

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 320 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Blood Trails: The Combat Diary of a Foot Soldier in Vietnam? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Blood Trails: The Combat Diary of a Foot Soldier in Vietnam. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried Shares Vietnam, war
  2. Last Man Out: A Personal Account of the Vietnam War Shares Vietnam, war
  3. The Phantom Blooper Shares Vietnam, war
  4. For Rouenna Shares Vietnam, war

“If you want more of the same (war and military), start with these.”

  1. Protecting Beauty
  2. Real Monsters
  3. The Nemesis File: The True Story of an SAS Execution Squad
  4. A Hell for Heroes

“If it was the Vietnam that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Why Didn't You Get Me Out?: A POW's Nightmare in Vietnam
  2. Devil's Guard: The Real Story
  3. Who Shot the Water Buffalo?: A Novel
  4. Chickenhawk: Back in the World Again: Life After Vietnam

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. 13 Cent Killers: The 5th Marine Snipers in Vietnam
  2. The Eyes of the Eagle: F Company LRPs in Vietnam, 1968
  3. Night Work
  4. The Low Bird