Signed by Author(s).“Nobody I ever met on my assignments … asked me for direct, practical help…. Based on hundreds of hours of interviews, dozens of personal letters written in the combat zone, Pentagon after-action reports, and travel to the battle sites with some of the soldiers (who meet their Vietnamese counterpart), and augmented by detailed maps and remarkable combat zone photographs, The Odyssey of Echo Company breaks through the wall of time to recount ordinary young American men in an extraordinary time in America and confirms Doug Stanton's prominence as an unparalleled storyteller of our age." (SIGNED FIRST EDITION). Many of them fall silent, knowing that few of their countrymen want to hear the remarkable story they have lived to tell until now. When the young men come home, some encounter a country that doesn't understand what they have suffered and survived. The Odyssey of Echo Company is about the young men who survived this epic span, and centers on the searing experiences of one of them, Stanley Parker, who is wounded three times during the fighting. The exhausting day-to-day existence, which involves ambushes on both sides, grueling gun battles, and heroic rescues of wounded comrades, forges the group into a lifelong brotherhood. Their battles against both North Vietnamese Army soldiers and toughened Viet Cong guerrillas are relentless, often hand-to-hand, and waged night and day across landing zones, rice paddies, hamlets, and dense jungle. Forty young American soldiers of an army reconnaissance platoon (Echo Company, 1/501) of the 101st Airborne Division and hailing from small farms, beach towns, and such big cities as Chicago and Los Angeles are suddenly thrust into savage combat, having been in-country only a few weeks. On a single night, January 31, 1968, as many as 100,000 soldiers in the North Vietnamese Army attacked thirty-six cities throughout South Vietnam, hoping to topple the government and dislodge American forces. 312 very clean unmarked and uncreased historical and informative pages of text and 16 pages of historic black and white photographs and illustrations! "A powerful work of literary military history from the New York Times bestselling author of In Harm's Way and Horse Soldiers, the harrowing, redemptive, and utterly unforgettable account of an American army reconnaissance platoon's fight for survival during the Vietnam War whose searing experiences reverberate today among the millions of American families touched by this war. A very crisp and clean SIGNED FIRST EDITION almost new and unread condition gift quality! Flatsigned by the author on the title page! Violet boards quarterbound by black cloth with red lettering on the spine. Signed by Both Authors, Roger & Sandra Downton. A near fine copy of a SCARCE first edition, first printing SIGNED BY BOTH AUTHORS. Two ordinary civilians, Roger and Sandra Downton from Poole in Dorset who, inspired by the heoism and daring exploits of the Cockleshell Heroes, retraced, with very little knowledge or experience of canoeing, the course of the daring mission. Just two men - Major Hasler and marine Bill Sparks - came back alive. Eventually, after a gruelling, covert canoe journey at night in the depths of winter, they successfully planted their specially designed magnetic 'limpet' mines on the enemy ships moored in the harbour of Bordeaux. At the outset of the operation, a succession of disasters left only four men to continue with the mission. The mission was called Operation Frankton, and the men involved became known as the legendary Cockleshell Heroes. There unfolded a war story of great human sacrifice, courage, danger, tenacity and achievement. In December1942, twelve men set out to execute a daring and imaginative attack on enemy shipping lying in the docks of Bordeaux. Illustrated with photographs, line-drawings and maps. SIGNED BY BOTH AUTHORS, ROGER & SANDRA DOWNTON, without dedication or inscription on verso of front cover.
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