NCOs explores what no other novel of the Vietnam War touches: what happened to professional soldiers who spent year after year in combat? We follow the glory hound Elroy Collins, the martinet Daniel Fujima, and the troubled Jasper L. Nichols as they deploy in 1965 with the U. S. Army’s elite infantry brigade, the 173rd Airborne . Each finds himself caught up in a meat grinder cycle of firefights and night ambushes across the same hills and rice paddies year after year. We watch as the war destroys all they love--families, careers, and indeed, the Army itself.
NCOs explores what no other novel of the Vietnam War touches: what happened to professional soldiers who spent year after year in combat? We follow the glory hound Elroy Collins, the martinet Daniel Fujima, and the troubled Jasper L. Nichols as they deploy in 1965 with the U. S. Army’s elite infantry brigade, the 173rd Airborne . Each finds himself caught up in a meat grinder cycle of firefights and night ambushes across the same hills and rice paddies year after year. We watch as the war destroys all they love--families, careers, and indeed, the Army itself.