Dave Hornell

Seeing the Elephant: Vietnam 1968 Dave Hornell

Recounts how a lad from a wee village in Ontario, Canada, blundered back and forth across the U. S. border, through stints in the Canadian Army, the RCAF and, eventually the USAF. Caught up in the Vietnam vortex, he fell through the rabbit hole into shaky attachment with the 101st Airborne Division, U. S. Army, as an Air Force weather man - tasked more often to drive a truck than gaze skyward into monsoon. The nature of his Vietnam assignment and less than strict discipline and oversight allowed for aperiodic free run of the entire contry from IV Corps (south of Saigon) to Hue in far north 'I' Corps. Finding humor somehow in rocket and mortar attacks, random bombings, fraggings and small arms fire requires only the perspective of one disenchanted and disconnected who was not a very good fit in anyone's chain of command. The book provides insight into how the Army operated from a unique viewpoint, how command philosophies varied from unit to unit, and how to survive those peculiarities in peace and war. Reminiscent of Kirst's GUNNER ASCH trilogy with a smattering of CATCH-22, Hornell's spot-on description of characters and events before, during, and after the epochal year, 1968 is likely to bring a knowing smile to the reader - with or without a military background.