Everything Happened in Vietnam: The Year of the Rat

What were you doing when you were nineteen? Ride along on this breath stopping journey of the heart, mind and soul of a 19 year old Marine to 1969 Vietnam. It's a full ride." This story will grab hold of you and not let go. A uniquely powerful departure from the genre of War literature. Funny, brutal, insightful, intimate...the narrative moves in the cadence of memories told as stories over a camp-fire. Thompson transports you into the mind-space of his 19 year-old self, poignantly reminding us that teenagers, boys even, fought this war, grew up there, grew old there, changed forever there. This memoir is a tour in Vietnam like it was: difficult, fear-filled, deep friendships, confusion, anger, humorous, sadness, grief and horror. It easily can stand beside such memoirs as Robert Graves; "Good Bye to All That." Students of history will find this book engrossing as a personal account of the average guy's experience in war. Students of Vietnam will experience a virtual reality tour in Nam through Thompson. His description of action is so realistic, so emotionally compelling, that you live Thompson's tour. Yet, he does not blame the system, the government or the military for his tour. He simply allows you to enter 1960s Vietnam in a way that will change your opinion of those who lived it. You also find out why it was his "Year of the Rat.