cover image Suicide Charlie: A Vietnam War Story

Suicide Charlie: A Vietnam War Story

Norman L. Russell. Praeger Publishers, $71.95 (216pp) ISBN 978-0-275-94521-3

Drafted in 1968 and sent to Vietnam when he was 19 years old, Russell served as a mortarman with the so-called Suicide Charlie company of the 25th U.S. Army Division. He recounts how the demands of war hardened him, turned him into a good soldier and left him haunted by certain experiences--most notably, the hideous death of a Vietnamese boy. ``The further I got into the war,'' he writes, ``the less sense it made.'' He began to rebel against routine orders, one of which was to shoot at Vietnamese children hanging around the camp's trash dump. After his return to the States in 1969, Russell faced another kind of battle--against postcombat depression and delayed stress. His memoir is marred by occasional moments of misplaced self-admiration (``The true miracle is that we comported ourselves so well--even nobly--under difficult circumstances''). Russell wrote and produced Fathers and Sons: Two Generations of American Combat Veterans for PBS-TV. (May)