Cool Guy, Schlock, Maserati, Perry and the guys in the second squad are members of the first communications battalion to be sent to Vietnam during the war. All Army enlisted soldiers, they’re “communicators, not killers,” as Cool Guy says.
It’s early in the war, 1963, before major shooting starts, so the restrictions are fewer on the men, and the four go into town and travel pretty much at will in a country so different from their own..
This timeframe is what sets 13 Months in Vietnam, a new novel by Bill Kroger, apart from other books that are heavy into the seriousness of war. The last thing any of these four young men wants is to kill someone.
As with most young men away from home for the first time, they get into trouble, all sorts of trouble, with a lot of humor thrown in. But they also get into the thick of several serious incidents to remind them they’re in a war zone.
They spend many of their evenings in downtown bars wooing the bargirls and drinking Ba-Mui-Ba beer.
Having arrived as teenagers, they emerge at the end of their 13 months’ tour of duty as young men, anxious to get on with their lives and ready to tackle the world.
Although the novel is fiction, it is based on the actual experiences of the author, who served in Vietnam in 1963 as an enlisted soldier and later was awarded a direct commission and retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel and battalion commander.
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Copies of 13 Months in Vietnam are available at all major booksellers, including Black Rose Writing, Amazon and Barnes & Noble. More information is available at the author’s web site: BillKroger.com.
Print and electronic review copies available upon request. Please email sales@blackrosewriting.com.
About Black Rose Writing
Black Rose Writing is an independent publishing house that strongly believes in developing a personal relationship with their authors. The Texas-based publishing company doesn’t see authors as clients or just another number on a page, but rather as individual people… people who deserve an honest review of their material and to be paid traditional royalties without ever paying any fees to be published.
