The 13th Valley by John M. Del Vecchio

Title: "The 13th Valley"
Author:  John M. Del Vecchio
Publisher: Warriors Publishing Group (July 17, 2012)
ISBN-10: 0986195502
ISBN-13: 978-0986195501



Summary:
This is a book focused on a fictional unit of the 101st Airborne.  It's August of 1970 at the tail end of Operation Texas Star.  The main character is a telephone guy named James Chelini who suddenly finds himself assigned to an infantry unit as an RTO.  He doesn't get much time to get familiar with his platoon before they are out on operation.  NVA had been spotted in the Khe Ta Laou valley and his battalion is sent in to fish them out and find their base.  The story progresses with introducing you to more of the soldiers in Alpha company and their struggle to complete the mission.

Thoughts:
This was my second time reading this book.  I had read it back in the 80's and then decided to read it again.  Obviously having aged, my perspective of this book was much different.  The author gives a good view of infantry life in Vietnam, especially when out humping a ruck.  So I think it's valuable in that aspect.  There is also a lot of philosophy discussion in this book on the reason for war, racism, colonialism, etc.  This time around I found it to be really tedious.  Maybe its because of all that's going on in the world right now.  So keep that in mind if you are not in the right "mood" and just looking for pure action.

Rating:    

I have avoided Vietnam fiction so far and will avoid this one, especially for the reasons you found it tedious. Novelists get into that more than most professional soldiers in their memoirs ever do.

Tom

I normally would avoid Vietnam war fiction but I read this because it was so well recommended. Once I got into it I really enjoyed it . Is really well written.

Rod,

thanks for posting and great to hear the two differing opinions from the one person 30+ years apart.