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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher |
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THE ODYSSEY OF ECHO COMPANY
The 1968 Tet Offensive and the Epic Battle of Echo Company to Survive the Vietnam War
From the New York Times bestselling author of In Harm’s Way and Horse Soldiers comes a harrowing and redemptive account of an American army platoon fighting for survival during the Vietnam War.
Odyssey is about twelve young men surviving sixty days on the run from the enemy during the Tet Offensive in 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War. Under trained, ill-prepared, naïve, and patriotic, this band of brothers forms a recon platoon of the 101st Airborne Division. The Tet Offensive, launched by the North Vietnamese Army, was the turningpoint in the decade long war, a national watershed moment. The fighting was hand to hand, non-stop, and waged in endless small battles that forged this group into a life-long brotherhood of survivors.
On a single night, January 31, 1968, some 100,000 NVA soldiers attacked 36 cities throughout South Vietnam, hoping to topple that government and dislodge American forces. The suddenness and scale of the attack resulted in a political victory back in the US, that led to, among other things, LBJ’s decision not to run for re-election. The boys of the recon platoon, average age 19, are from small farms, California beach towns, and big cities like Chicago, and they are cast into a war they neither understand, nor, ultimately, feel they can win. Winning, then, becomes simply a matter of survival, of keeping the man on your left and right alive. Each young man lived a 100 years in these days, and came home to a country that did not understand, nor wanted to understand, what they had survived.
They came home winners for having survived; but were losers for having fought there. When they came home, they landed in San Francisco and took off their uniforms, and walked back into America, where they fell silent and realized that not many wanted to hear the remarkable story they had to tell—until now.
Doug Stanton lives in his hometown of Traverse City, Michigan, and has worked as a creative writing and English teacher at the undergraduate and graduate college level, and at Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan as writer-in-residence. He has traveled extensively as a contributing editor for Esquire, Men’s Journal, and Outside magazines, writing travel, adventure, and political pieces. He is a founder of the high-profile Traverse City Film Festival, an annual celebration of cinema, and the increasingly well known National Writers Series. With his contacts in the Department of Defense, Pentagon, and various branches of the U.S. military, Stanton is a subject matter expert in the areas of insurgency, counter-insurgency, and unconventional and civil wars.
On a single night, January 31, 1968, some 100,000 NVA soldiers attacked 36 cities throughout South Vietnam, hoping to topple that government and dislodge American forces. The suddenness and scale of the attack resulted in a political victory back in the US, that led to, among other things, LBJ’s decision not to run for re-election. The boys of the recon platoon, average age 19, are from small farms, California beach towns, and big cities like Chicago, and they are cast into a war they neither understand, nor, ultimately, feel they can win. Winning, then, becomes simply a matter of survival, of keeping the man on your left and right alive. Each young man lived a 100 years in these days, and came home to a country that did not understand, nor wanted to understand, what they had survived.
They came home winners for having survived; but were losers for having fought there. When they came home, they landed in San Francisco and took off their uniforms, and walked back into America, where they fell silent and realized that not many wanted to hear the remarkable story they had to tell—until now.
Doug Stanton lives in his hometown of Traverse City, Michigan, and has worked as a creative writing and English teacher at the undergraduate and graduate college level, and at Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan as writer-in-residence. He has traveled extensively as a contributing editor for Esquire, Men’s Journal, and Outside magazines, writing travel, adventure, and political pieces. He is a founder of the high-profile Traverse City Film Festival, an annual celebration of cinema, and the increasingly well known National Writers Series. With his contacts in the Department of Defense, Pentagon, and various branches of the U.S. military, Stanton is a subject matter expert in the areas of insurgency, counter-insurgency, and unconventional and civil wars.
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Book
Published 2017-09-19 by Scribner |
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Book
Published 2017-09-19 by Scribner |