“Kids like me didn’t go to Vietnam,” writes Jack McLean in his compulsively readable memoir. Raised in suburban New Jersey, he attended the Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, but decided to put college on hold. After graduation in the spring of 1966, faced with the mandatory military draft, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps for a two-year stint. “Vietnam at the time was a country, and … and not yet a war,” he writes. It didn’t remain that way for long.
A year later, after boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, and stateside duty in Barstow, California, the Vietnam War was reaching its peak. McLean, like most available Marines, was retrained at Camp Pendleton, California, and sent to Vietnam as a grunt to serve in an infantry company in the northernmost reaches of South Vietnam. McLean’s story climaxes with the horrific three-day Battle for Landing Zone Loon in June, 1968. Fought on a remote hill in the northwestern corner of South Vietnam, McLean bore witness to the horror of war and was forever changed. He returned home six weeks later to a country largely ambivalent to his service.
Written with honesty and insight, Loon is a powerful coming-of-age portrait of a boy who bears witness to some of the most tumultuous events in our history, both in Vietnam and back home.
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Excellent telling of Viet Nam war from a soldier’s viewpoint. This is something for all Americans to know and remember.
A good view of the Vietnam war from a front line grunt.
Excellent read. Author made reading this book enjoyable thru the last words – felt as if one was transported back in time to the Vietnam war
Good representation of the Vietnam experience.
As Lee Iacocca put it; he was called and he went. He had no moral grounds at that time in his life to refuse. I think Muhammad Ali did, but then Ali paid the price for his choice without a whimper.
About the authors time in the Marines.
Reminds me of my time in the service
A good account of one of the hottest battle zones in the Vietnam war.
This was a powerful account of a time in Viet Nam as a soldier experiencing the horrors of war. It was tragic and horrible, but riveting.
A good story about a bad time. I hope this story might explain to the younger folks all the wars suck if you fight in them or lose people in them. Just wars are for the profiteers, this author survived and does a good job expolaining how.
If you enjoy first person accounts of the Vietnam War this is one of the best.
Very interesting stuff about Vietnam. I was over there earlier, so this was a different perspective
As a former Marine 0311 trooper, I found this to be a match with my experience.
I’d recommend this to anyone interested in learning about the life (and death) of a Marine grunt.
Fantastic book – realistic portrayal of the like of a grunt in Viet Nam.
Hard to put down. Great read.
The most honest book I’ve read about the Vietnam war. Very authentic, very real
Great read. Minor quibbles. The premise that the lower socioeconomic economic classes were overly represented in Vietnam is a bit over stated. The current studies show that it was far from that. Maybe some updates are in order. While men from his school or the “Ivy League” schools managed to avoid duty, overall all classes were represented in …
Great and factual read.
I fought in Vietnam with the marines and on this same operation that the book is named for. It filled a lot of missing pieces.
Humbling,sobering, enlightening and inspirational. The Marines are a cut above.