cover image Victor Six: The Saga of America's Youngest, Most Decorated Officer in Vietnam

Victor Six: The Saga of America's Youngest, Most Decorated Officer in Vietnam

David Christian. McGraw-Hill Companies, $19.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-07-010856-1

By the time he was 21, Christian had risen to the rank of Army captain in the American forces fighting in Vietnam and had amassed considerable experience leading a reconnaisance unit whose missions were guerilla warfare, harassment and interdiction. Though something of a rebel, he was also a brilliant leader, admired by the men in the platoon, which had been dubbed ``Christian's Butchers.'' In due course, he was badly wounded and hospitalized, returned to combat and then was seriously burned by napalm. Returning to the U.S., he resumed his status as a warrior, this time fighting for Vietnam veterans' rights to education, job training and, above all, appreciation by their fellow citizens. Writing here with Hoffer ( Midnight Express ), Christian, now a business consultant, makes a strong case for the oft-maligned servicepeople who went to war in Vietnam simply because their government told them to--and his pleas for an understanding of what they have suffered will leave no reader indifferent. Photos. (Sept.)