"…we'd feel 10 feet tall and bulletproof on the LZ, and we'd walk among the LZ's regulars knowing we were elite. It didn't matter if they saw us that way, it was enough that we knew we were bad-ass motherfuckers in the baddest place in the universe. I understood how inane that macho-thinking was but as I soared high above the jungle with the cool air in my face I was as caught up in it as the rest of them."
One of the most dangerous occupations during the Vietnam War was walking point, a role Ed Mann took on and specialized in. He served a tour of duty in Vietnam as an infantry soldier in the famed 1st Air Cavalry Division from June of 1969 to June of 1970.
Mann was wounded several times, receiving several decorations including the Silver Star, while experiencing the extreme hardships of the war with his fellow soldiers. He would continue to walk point for his entire tour, becoming more like the jungle as the days turned into weeks and months.
Mann acknowledges the way it was changing him during his time in Vietnam - "I was repulsed by the senselessness and savagery of the war and I was saddened by the price it exacted but I was seduced by it too; proud to be performing an important role in a deadly fight for survival and lured by the adrenaline rushes."
An intensely immersive, gritty, and tension-filled account of his experience that will transport you to the war in the jungle in a way that sets it apart from other Vietnam memoirs.
