
“I was young and lived by impulsive decisions, Steven Grzesik admits midway through We Had to Get Out of That Place: A Memoir of Redemption and Betrayal in Vietnam (McFarland, 215 pp. $29.95, paper; $13.49, Kindle). Grzeski served two tours in the Vietnam War as a Light Weapon Infantryman at Dau Tieng, a Ranger with the 25th Infantry Division at Cu Chi, and a helicopter door gunner at Chu Lai. The book reflects the torturing of human spirit as revelatory as any I have read.
With the concentration of a clinical psychiatrist, Grzesik analyzes his youthful exposure to warfare. As a skinny and bullied New York City kid, he escaped tough guys, uncaring parents, and poverty by moving to Greenwich Village and joining the counterculture until he suffered a psychotic reaction to LSD. On being drafted in 1967 at age 20, he says, “I was rescued by the Army. The rigors of basic training hardened me mentally and physically.” Outshining his draftee peers instilled him with confidence.
Grzesik challenged many of his officers and NCOs. With an outsider’s mentality, he says, “I just was never in well enough to be buddies with any superior.” Nor was he subtle about displaying his feelings. He once aimed his M16 at a sergeant who treated him unfairly and pointed an unsheathed machete at another sergeant who physically threatened him. Later, Grzesik punched a lieutenant who insisted on making him obey a regulation overlooked by virtually everybody else. In lieu of a court-martial, he accepted a second tour of duty in Vietnam.
Despite the conflicts that Grzesik instigated, he was a conscientious soldier. He hated officers and NCOs because of the way they treated new personnel, particularly in Vietnam War field operations. He despised the FNG label. He felt that officers had the rank, but enlisted men did the work. He believed that superior rank provided no excuse for taking advantage of lower-level soldiers and called it out.
The sincerity with which We Had to Get Out of That Place looks back on the Vietnam War overwhelmed me. Grzesik wanted to be a good soldier, but found it difficult as he was trying to survive the war. In the book, he repeatedly emphasizes that he did not want to be killed in a war that had no meaning. He switched jobs in hopes of surviving the war but ended up performing more dangerous duties. At times, his actions ignored reason and resulted in near disaster.

Grzesik’s desire for fairness from sergeants led him to all-but-escape infantry duty on his first Vietnam War tour, but not on his second.Taking advantage of his previous in-country experiences, he joined the Rangers. When his unit disbanded, he found himself jobless and went on a pharmacological spree while whoring his way around Saigon.
His descriptions of the drug and prostitution scenes make compelling reading. Arrested and again facing a court-martial, he showed his warrior mentality by volunteering to be a Huey helicopter door gunner, which turned out to be a mind-boggling experience. At that point in the book, I could not put it down and read far into the night.
Grzesik provides heartfelt insights into his passage into adulthood. Of his time in the counterculture, for example, he says, “The Age of Aquarius was not coming. It was a lie.” Recalling the war, he says, “Vietnam was a National Geographic moment gone terribly wrong.” Walking on patrol, he thought, “I felt like a man new to prison.” After the fact, he writes, “I cried because the greatest effort in my life meant nothing.”
We Had to Get Out of That Place informed and entertained me in many ways as it resurrected memories of my own similar thoughts and behavior. Grzesik sums up much of his existence by telling his reader, “I was fifty-seven years old before I mellowed enough to be a great husband to anyone.”
—Henry Zeybel