Heroes of Vietnam

It is 1965, and America is putting more boots on the ground to fight the communists who have sent their powerful People’s Army of Vietnam, the PAVN, south. Their aim is to defeat the South Vietnamese Army, the ARVN, and impose the iron fist of communist rule on the democratic South. Walker knows nothing of politics or military strategy and tactics. A single obsession rules his life: to become a major league baseball pitcher.

Rookie Joe Walker, 3rd Brigade, 7th Air Cavalry, was finding life in Vietnam tough. The war is building into a major conflict, yet despite his efforts, he feels like a square peg in a round hole. He can’t shoot straight, missed the bayonet course, and nothing ever goes right. He can throw a mean grenade, but the army made him a rifleman, and they’re determined to make sure he can shoot straight. Or else.

Private Joe Walker and Third Platoon run into an ambush, and this is no ordinary ambush. Waiting for them is a North Vietnamese armored unit. This is a place where no armor should exist for a long, long way. And Third Platoon has no way to engage enemy tanks. Yet they have a radio, and all it needs is a quick call to Da Nang to call in a squadron of fighter bombers. Until the radio is damaged, and the tanks are coming on fast.

Joe runs into a hidden punji trap, and the poisoned stakes deal him a hammer blow. A dustoff back to Da Nang and a long stay in the hospital puts him out of action, and the only consolation is the pretty nurse who attends to his wounds. When he is released, his platoon is in the field, and they give him a temporary posting to another platoon about to fly out to the Laotian border to check out a rumored convoy of vital supplies, weapons, and ammo for the VC.

The war is heating up, and they have no time for R&R before the Hueys take off and carry them to their next mission. A Vietcong fortified town in the Mekong Delta, a stronghold heavily defended by troops and heavy weapons. The Cav’s job is to go in, take the town and locate and destroy the enemy. To give the VC a hard, brutal lesson they will never forget.

American aircraft are going down, victim to missile batteries hidden deep in the jungles of South Vietnam, and they bring in an Air Force expert, Colonel Dan Carter, to analyze the defenses and devise a strategy to destroy them. Yet, the Vietcong gets wind of the colonel’s arrival, and plan to murder him. Joe Cooper, Air Cav, returns from an abortive mission to grab an important and high-ranking North Vietnamese. A mission gives MACV an idea to protect their expert.