Tiger the Lurp Dog

If you miss Vietnam this is a good way to go home. This story of a LRRP team will break your heart, but it will also fill it with gladness. You will love these guys, and you will enjoy sharing their experiences. The ending will leave you pretty much where the war left you.

Mopar is a LURP, an Airborne Ranger, an American Samurai and he's in the the middle of dense bush in the middle of a jungle in Vietnam. He's with a five-man recon team inserted many miles from friendlies to install people sensors and sniffers so that a firestorm of artillery can be called down invisibly on the heads of the NVA who control the area. Secondarily, the team is looking for the bones or dog tags of another LURP team that disappeared in the same area a while back. Mopar ignores the leeches that suck his blood, the many varieties of insects that sting him ceaselessly, ignores the heat, the broiling heat. He is armed to the teeth with a Swedish K-silenced-and a CAR-15. He carries an assortment of claymore mines and fragmentation grenades, a fighting knife honed sharp enough to shave with. He is proficient with all of them. He looks, and is, ferocious. He wears tiger stripe jungle fatigues and a floppy LURP hat. His face is camoflaged. He can go for days without food, without sleep, without moving his bowels. He is smart, he is cunning, and he is deadly. He neither gives nor expects mercy. A pure warrior. Mopar sits back to back with his team members in a night defensive position-to see all ways, always-and thinks "This is the real world, here and now. Everything else is just frivolous civilian luxury". Mopar is nineteen years old.Mopar is one of the main characters in Kenn Miller's cult classic "Tiger the LURP Dog", a book that is real, that is true. Mr. Miller doesn't waste a whole lot of time dwelling on the political and social upheaval the Vietnam war caused in the United States. There is some disparaging reference to a "peace creep" girlfriend back home, but that's about it. This is an authentic look at that unique and bold sub-strata of warrior, the men who conduct long range reconnaissance patrols in enemy territory. They fight for themselves, so much so that when a chaplain ("...fat and reeking of after-shave and spray deodorant, sucking a life saver") is giving a "God and Country" sermon at a memorial for several of their fallen comrades, a LURP at the back of the formation mutters "bulls**t" loud enough for everyone to hear and they all snicker in agreement. Dialogue crackles and the pacing is swift. "Tiger the LURP Dog" deserves a better fate than the obscurity conferred by being labelled a "cult classic".

I resently reread this book and it brought back great memmories. Not of Vietnam, but of the early '80s when I was in the 82d Airborne and me and my fellow Sp4s set around talking about all things hard core and airborne, such as this book. In jump school and in the division we heard stories of lurps and rangers but did not really know what they did. This was the first book to go into detail about the life of lurps, and in my opinion this book is better than the fictional lurp books that followed. The book's ending is a heartbreak but also suggests a sequel. Let's hope it happens sometimes. Airborne all the way Kenn.

This is the book that started it all! It's the one that first introduced LRRP/Rangers to the world and the one that set the standard for those of us who followed. Kenn Miller's is not just a military writer but a gifted writer whose style and talent reveal that gift and remind us that this is a craft and he is a craftsman. Sound hokey? Well, give his book a read and you'll see what I mean. These aren't stock characters and this isn't your everyday story. If you can find a copy of this book, hold on to it. It's a classic and with its next release will still be a bestseller!

This novel took me by complete surprise. The writing was as good as anything I've read in recent memory. Miller is one of the most honest and descriptive writers of this genre and hopefully this won't be his last novel. I think that a more suitable title would have helped this work become a greater success. If it is ever reprinted, the author or publisher should definitely consider renaming it. I believe the current title doesn't do justice to the serious subject matter at hand. Either way, I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in a first-hand account of Lurps (Rangers) in action. This is truly the work of a great writer.