They say you cannot judge a book by its cover. So, because Pen & Sword Military almost always has excellent covers, the contents of its books need to stand on their own merits. Edward Dvorak’s Elite Bastards: The Combat Missions of Company F LRP Teams in Vietnam (Pen and Sword, 296 pp. $31.88, hardcover; $14.40, Kindle) is a very readable book that more than equals its striking cover.
This is a war memoir about the U.S. Army’s legendary Vietnam War Long Range Patrols and Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols (collectively, LRPs), written by someone who was part of one from its inception and who eventually became its NCO Team Leader.
LRP teams performed one of the most difficult, dangerous, and demanding jobs in the war, typically undertaking four-night and five-day patrols into enemy territory with either six or twelve men whose purpose was either to engage in combat or, more often, do bomb damage assessments, search for POW camps, and plant sensors.
Dvorak, who was brought up on a South Dakota cattle ranch, had shockingly inadequate stateside military training before he went to MACV Recondo School in Vietnam. He had never fired an M-16 rifle until he was issued a dirty one in Vietnam. He describes in great detail every aspect of his tour with the F Company LRPs in the Army’s 51st Infantry, including helicopter insertions and extractions, mission prep, how to pick landing zones, missions themselves, life at base camps, and the 80 pounds worth of things they carried on missions. Not to mention chapters on shit burning details and Biên Hòa whorehouses.
Dvorak, who spent his 20th birthday at an ambush site in the jungle and did 19 months in Vietnam, is not shy about complementing good leaders and fellow LRPs and severely criticizing those whose decisions caused men to be wounded or killed unnecessarily. He attributes his successes partially to his in-country training and mainly to luck, although his excellent judgment and attention to detail were also responsible for what right. Murphy’s Law, a fixture throughout the book, rarely finds him unprepared.
Among the interesting details I learned was that insects, when they became quiet, and monkeys, when they became noisy, were reliable warning systems of enemy presence and that LRPs learned to smell their enemy and vice versa. And that Dvorak had enormous respect for both the VC and the NVA; that friendly fire, particularly artillery, was more dangerous for LRPs than enemy fire; that most LRPs developed tinnitus and hearing loss years after their tours ended; and that their weapon of choice was the M18 Claymore mine.
I do have a few nits to pick with this fine book. There is no index or glossary, for one thing, the latter of which is almost always necessary for general readers because of the many military terms and acronyms Dvorak uses in the book. Plus, there are some spelling errors, including “di di mow” instead of “di di mau,” the former or which is perhaps a quick lawn haircut.
These are minor points, but do distract somewhat from the otherwise fine writing in this book. Xin lỗi, GI.
–Harvey Weiner
Books in Review II 