Each year, the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps selects onebook that he believes is both relevant and timeless for reading byall Marines. The Commandant's choice for 1993 was We Were SoldiersOnce . . . and Young.
In November 1965, some 450 men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry,under the command of Lt. Col. Hal Moore, were dropped by helicopterinto a small clearing in the Ia Drang Valley. They were immediatelysurrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers. Three days later,only two and a half miles away, a sister battalion was chopped topieces. Together, these actions at the landing zones X-Ray andAlbany constituted one of the most savage and significant battlesof the Vietnam War.
How these men persevered--sacrificed themselves for theircomrades and never gave up--makes a vivid portrait of war at itsmost inspiring and devastating. General Moore and Joseph Galloway,the only journalist on the ground throughout the fighting, haveinterviewed hundreds of men who fought there, including the NorthVietnamese commanders. This devastating account rises above thespecific ordeal it chronicles to present a picture of men facingthe ultimate challenge, dealing with it in ways they would havefound unimaginable only a few hours earlier. It reveals to us, asrarely before, man's most heroic and horrendous endeavor.
【作者简介】
Harold G. Moore was born in Kentucky and is a West Pointgraduate, a master parachutist, and an Army aviator. He commandedtwo infantry companies in the Korean War and was a battalion andbrigade commander in Vietnam. He retired from the Army in 1977 withthirty-two years' service and then was executive vice president ofa Colorado ski resort for four years before founding a computersoftware company. An avid outdoorsman, Moore and his wife, Julie,divide their time between homes in Auburn, Alabama, and CrestedButte, Colorado.
Joseph L. Galloway is a native Texan. At seventeen he was areporter on a daily newspaper, at nineteen a bureau chief forUnited Press International. He spent fifteen years as a foreign andwar correspondent based in Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, India,Singapore, and the Soviet Union. Now a senior writer with U.S.News & World Report, he covered the Gulf War and coauthoredTriumph Without Victory: The Unreported History of the PersianGulf War. Galloway lives with his wife, Theresa, andsons, Lee and Joshua, on a farm in northern Virginia. .
以下为对购买帮助不大的评价