Called "everything a twentieth century war memoir could possibly be" by The New York Times, this national bestseller by Colonel David H. Hackworth presents a vivid and powerful portrait of a life of patriotism. From age fifteen to forty David Hackworth devoted himself to the US Army and fast became a living legend. In 1971, however, he appeared on television to decry the doomed war effort in Vietnam. With About Face, he has written what many Vietnam veterans have called the most important book of their generation. From Korea to Berlin, from the Cuban missile crisis to Vietnam, Hackworth's story is that of an exemplary patriot, played out against the backdrop of the changing fortunes of America and the American military. It is also a stunning indictment of the Pentagon's fundamental misunderstanding of the Vietnam conflict and of the bureaucracy of self-interest that fuelled the war. Heavily decorated Colonel Hackworth narrates his life and disillusionment during Vietnam. Orphaned before he was a year old, he found his home at 15 in the Army. In Korea, heroism gave him a battlefield commission at 20. During the Cold War, he commanded at the Berlin wall and the Cuban missile crises. But Vietnam led to disillusionment.

About Face

Hackworth, Col. David H.

Sidgwick

In January 1969, one of the most promising young lieutenant colonels the US Army had ever seen touched down in Vietnam for his second tour of duty, which would turn out to be his most daring and legendary. David H. Hackworth had just completed the writing of a tactical handbook for the Pentagon, and now he had been ordered to put his counterguerilla-fighting theories into action. He was given the morale-drained 4/39th—a battalion of poorly led draftees suffering the Army's highest casualty rate and considered its worst fighting battalion. Hackworth's hard-nosed, inventive and inspired leadership quickly turned the 4/39th into Vietnam's valiant and ferocious Hardcore Recondos. Drawing on interviews with soldiers from the Hardcore Battalion conducted over the past decade by his partner and coauthor, Eilhys England, Hackworth takes readers along on their sniper missions, ambush actions, helicopter strikes and inside the quagmire of command politics. With Steel My Soldiers' Hearts, Hackworth places the brotherhood of the 4/39th into the pantheon of our nation's most heroic warriors.

Steel My Soldiers' Hearts: The Hopeless to Hardcore Transformation of U.S. Army, 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry, Vietnam

History

Military

Touchstone

Called “everything a war memoir could possibly be” by The New York Times, this all-time classic of the military memoir genre now includes a new forward from bestselling author and retired Navy SEAL Jocko Willink.\nWhether he was fifteen years old or forty, David Hackworth devoted his life to the US Army and quickly became a living legend. However, he appeared on TV in 1971 to decry the doomed war effort in Vietnam.\nFrom Korea to Berlin and the Cuban missile crisis to Vietnam, Hackworth’s story is that of an exemplary patriot, played against the backdrop of the changing fortunes of America and the US military. This memoiris the stunning indictment of the Pentagon’s fundamental misunderstanding of the Vietnam conflict and of the bureaucracy of self-interest that fueled the war. With About Face, Hackworth has written what many Vietnam veterans have called the most important book of their generation and presents a vivid and powerful portrait of patriotism.

About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster

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