Nam Sense: Surviving Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division

Not every book engages me. Not every book makes me give up sleep in order to continue reading. Not all books begin at the beginning and end at the end, but this one does. This author tells his story, giving life to his memories, making you feel as though the events he chronicles happened weeks not decades ago. He may have left things out for the sake of time, space or his own personal reason. But if there are holes in this history, I was unable to find them. The story is tight without being uptight. He doesn't pull any punches and is not shy in the least about speaking the truth as he sees it. This sometimes means a tough criticism of those who were his superior, our government and the American people. But who better to judge than someone who lived the story? He speaks from practical experience and some an incredible experience some of them were. They might even be hard to believe except for the fact that many that he relates are well documented by many other sources. His entire book is very well laid out and gives you what I believe is a very clear picture of how a regular young man did some quite extraordinary things. Much of what he did, he feels was just what he should have been doing, trying to use his head to keep himself and others alive and whole, keeping his integrity and self respect intact, but if that was an easy task, then there can be no explanation why so many men were unable to do the same. The more logical explanation is that he may have been a down to earth young man, wanting not a lot more than to stay alive, but he was no regular guy. He was born to be a leader. Not the sort of leader than sits back and doesn't get involved. Not the sort that never knows what is going on but thinks he knows how to get the work done. Nope, he knew how to get the work done, because he was one of the workers. How better to lead than by example? It can't be easy to decide to write about your life, especially a part that many who share similar memories would rather forget. But then to write down those remembrances, detail by detail, favorable or not, to finally throw caution to the wind, is impressive indeed. Much credit should be given to a man who could easily brush over the unglorified, untidy and unimaginable but doesn't. If you are looking for a book completely free of chest pounding, he-man GI Joe and check me-out I am a hero talk, then you have found the right book. If you were hoping for a story that will just tell you how a man might end up in a place a gazillion miles from his home, fighting a war whose motives changed like the directions of the wind, this is the one. He will answer your questions and offer you more. In his own quiet, conversational, plain-speak way, without shouting it from the highest peak and without a single whisper of HE-man talk, Mr. Wiknik proves he was and is a warrior, an American hero and a living part of our history. If you ever had questions about the war, if you ever doubted the intentions of the

Wiknik's NAM SENSE is one of the best memoirs by a grunt, and I've read most of them. I was in Wiknik's battalion but did not know him. His sense of the absurdities in the Army as well as the real strains on a grunt in the field are more candid that most memoirs. I can vouch for the authenticity of the story on page 63 about the soldier hanging from the chopper by a rappelling rope ... it was my unit that was being inserted, and I can never forget the horror of that event. I would rate Wiknik's book among the best VN memoirs along with those of Brennan, Burns, Foley and O'Brien.

NAM SENSE ranks as one of the best books I've read about Vietnam from an combat infantryman's prespective. It is well laid out and Wiknik has put his thoughts and emotions in every sentence. This is a riflemans combat tour in a book and he's not shy about sharing his feelings with his to often incompetent leaders. As a "Shake N' Bake" warrior, I too know what he had to deal with from all avenues and can testify he did an excellent job.

Nam Sense is an outstanding read. Once I picked it up I could hardly put it down. It is written with great wit and graphically captures what it was like for many who served as Grunts in Vietnam. My own tour as a combat medic with the 3/506 (Arti was with the 2/506) overlapped his and I was surprised to read that we were in some of the same places at the same time. If you really want to know how it felt to be in Vietnam and face the horrors of an unpopular war this book is a must read. Once you are done you will understand and appreciate the Vietnam Vet a whole lot more.

NAM SENSE, as the parody of this title suggests, is an AMAZING story, which undoubtedly rings as true today as it did 40 years ago when it all happened! It was written by a bright and capable man who never wanted to be in the Viet Nam war, nor any war for that matter, but who made the best of an ugly situation, in order to keep himself and his men alive. As a Non-Commissioned Officer at a very young age, Art Wiknik Jr. was forced to deal with all of the ugliness of war: macho superior officers, hunger, mistakes, uncertainty, homesickness, lack of love, death of friends and fellow soldiers, and the constant fear of never returning home alive. His book is a candid exposé of the reality of war, including the psychological trauma inflicted by fighting a war that was not supported by a large contingent of the American people. The writing is riveting, sometimes horrific, but always honest in its portrayal of his inner emotions, as counter as they sometimes were to logic or sanity. In it, you can feel the frustration, anger and pain that these young soldiers experienced as they were thrown into a war that no one (except the military "Lifers") wanted to be in. Many of his experiences make one wonder why we value the lives of our young men and women so little when we send them to war, and when they come home after they have sacrificed so much. The realities of Wiknik's life as a soldier, the emotional roller coaster he felt and the fear of imminent potential death must parallel the same emotions felt by our brave soldiers now in Iraq, especially as support for the present war is waning. This is a MUST READ for those interested in the inner feelings of brave young men sent to war, no matter which continent, no matter which century. Tom Suchanek, Ph.D.