Mekong First Light: An Infantry Platoon Leader in Vietnam

As a retired Army officer who served during the Vietnam Era (but not in Vietnam) and in Desert Storm I highly recommend this book. The section of the book explaining how we were led into the morass of the Vietnam war is superb. I have reread the last several chapters many times as CPT Callaway so eloquently explains his personal feelings about war. I especially loved his chapter to his sons. I am haunted by this book and how it portrays the similarity (my thoughts after reading his explanation of how we got into Vietnam) between our entry into Vietnam and our entry into Iraq. I commend CPT Gallaway for an excellent piece of literature.

Captain Callaway gives us a citizen soldier's perspective of the horrors of war and the folly of America's involvement in the Vietnam War. Joe Callaway was a kid who no one thought would ever amount to much but enlisting in the Army as a private, he would eventually become an effective combat platoon leader. I appreciate his honesty in sharing with his readers the pain he experienced in losing so many friends and his retrospective thoughts on the war, the army, lost friends, leaders, and returning to a different America. Thank you, Joe for writing a very personal book and for helping us connect with the emotions and difficulties of that time and war.

I was in Joe Callaway's OCS class and was assigned, with him, to C Company, 2nd Battalion, 60th Infantry after graduation. We went through training raw recruits, and ourselves, to be a unit at Ft Riley then shipped over to the Mekong Delta. Joe has captured the demands of being an Infantry platoon leader in combat in an exceptioal way. The stress, both physical and mental, of combat operations is accurately stated in human terms. His dealings with the realities of combat are especially relavent to anyone preparing to be a combat leader. Men's lives hinge on your decisions and Joe's soul searching when one is lost is an experience shared by all leaders since we began warfare. I experienced the same feelings and stress. We had to deal with it and Joe vividly describes how he did. I have recommended this book to other veterans of C Company and all have responded to it in a positive manner. If you want to know what a young man thrust in to a leadership role goes through, read this book.

With Mekong First Light, Joe Callaway has accomplished a very ambitious work not only on his harrowing experiences as an infantry officer in Viet Nam, but how he got there in the first place and how the experience affected his life since those two tours. The book vividly describes the reality of war: the violent loss of life and the mayhem of combat operations, along with a myriad of other factors that affect combat soldiers like lack of sleep, sunburn, bug bites and personal issues back in the real world. This depiction transcends Viet Nam, as it is easier to imagine the environment any combat soldier endures, especially the current conflict in Iraq. While many autobiographical accounts of Viet Nam stop end there, Callaway is just beginning. He puts the entire experience in perspective, beginning with his description of growing up in semi-rural Alabama that has all of the homesy, poignant flavor of My Dog Skip, in stark contrast to his high school years in up-scale, trendy Connecticut...a lifestyle juxtaposition that left him more than a little dislocated socially and academically on the eve of the horror of Viet Nam which he would back into. Aside from the Oscar-winning film drama, Coming Home, few Viet Nam stories have successfully captured life after combat, especially for the average Joe who survived the physical maiming to deal with the emotional ghosts. Callaway depicts how he re-entered "the real world", as vets called it and how he still deals with it today. A special bonus is in the introduction, where Callaway offers one of the most complete, yet succinct, explanations of the historical perspective of how and why we ended up in such a quagmire in Viet Nam. As I am myself a collegiate Asian history major, I challenge anyone to do a better job. Throughout, Callaway does not hint of any political bias, except for a brief swipe at John Kerry's Viet Nam Vets Against the War activites. But then Callaway clearly understands that the personal experience of comabt is in itself is not about red or blue states, but only about physical, emotional and moral survival....a contest that doesn't end the day you leave the combat zone. I read the book during the 2004 presidential campaign, amidst the debate over Iraq. While the wars are in many ways different, the similarities, especially at the personal level, are great. Hence, you can read it with another conflict in mind. My son is planning to take a high school seminar next year on the Viet Nam era. I will heartily recommend this book to the instructor as a heart-felt, provacative addition. While he strongly states that this book was a life's passion to expunge his soul, Callaway is deserving to be heard again. His integrity and sensitivity permeates his writing, and he is capable of telling a good story. Perhaps he can build on the stories of his youth in Enterprise, AL with more My-Dog-Skip parables or equally poignant tales. Well done, Joe Callaway!

"Mekong First Light" is a remarkable story that will remind the reader of Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers" and "Band of Brothers." The author's vivid, crisp and spare descriptions of what it was like for a platoon leader on point, his candid observations about the command decisions, and his brief but telling encounters with Westmoreland/Kerry are generous to the reader and clearly impart the notion that his are honest appraisals by a soldier without an agenda. Very Highly Recommended.