Close Quarters

From the moment his first novel was published, Larry Heinemann joined the ranks of the great chroniclers of the Vietnam conflict. Here, in the stripped-down, unsullied patois of an ordinary soldier, draftee Philip Dosier tells his story of the war: the story of a kid straight out of high school, too young to vote or buy himself a drink, who enters a world of mud and heat, blood and body counts, ambushes and firefights. It is here that he embarks on the brutal downward path to wisdom that awaits every soldier.