Reluctant Warrior A Marine's True Story of Duty and Heroism in Vietnam

"ONE OF THE BEST VIETNAM WAR STORIES I'VE EVER READ, one damn good, compelling read. It's almost something out of a Clancy novel, yet it's true. The best thing I can say about it is I didn't want it to end." --Col. David Hackworth, New York Times bestselling author of About Face By the spring of 1970, American troops were ordered to pull out of Vietnam. The Marines of 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel "Wild Bill" Drumright, were assigned to cover the withdrawal of 1st Marine Division. The Marines of 1st RECON Bn operated in teams of six or seven men. Heavily armed, the teams fought a multitude of bitter engagements with a numerically superior and increasingly aggressive enemy. Michael C. Hodgins served in Company C, 1st RECON Bn (Rein), as a platoon leader. In powerful, graphic prose, he chronicles his experience as a patrol leader in myriad combat situations--from hasty ambush to emergency extraction to prisoner snatch to combined-arms ambush. . . . "THIS MEMOIR IS GRIPPING." --American Way

Michael C. Hodgins enlisted in the United States Marines on July 7, 1964, shortly after his eighteenth birthday. He was commissioned through the Enlisted Commissioning Program in February 1969 and, upon completion of The Basic School, assigned to 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade, then deployed in South Vietnam. He served as an infantry platoon leader in Company H, 2d Battalion, 26th Marines from August 1969 to February 1970, whence he joined Company C, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division. Upon his return from Vietnam, the author served at various posts and stations as an infantry officer until resigning his commission in August 1978. He now resides in La Jolla, California, with his wife and two sons.