They Marched Into Sunlight
War and Peace Vietnam and America October 1967
Read by: David Maraniss
Here is the epic story of Vietnam and the sixties told through the events of a few tumultuous days in October 1967. With meticulous and captivating detail, They Marched Into Sunlight brings that catastrophic time back to life while examining questions about the meaning of dissent and the official manipulation of truth, issues that are as relevant today as they were decades ago.
In the Long Nguyen Secret Zone of Vietnam, a renowned battalion of the First Infantry Division is marching into a devastating ambush that will leave sixty-one soldiers dead and an equal number wounded. On the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison, students are staging an obstructive protest at the Commerce Building against recruiters for Dow Chemical Company, makers of napalm and Agent Orange, that ends in a bloody confrontation with club-wielding Madison police. And in Washington, President Lyndon Johnson is dealing with pressures closing in on him from all sides and lamenting to his war council, "How are we ever going to win this war?"
Based on thousands of primary documents and 180 on-the-record interviews, the story unfolds day by day, hour by hour, and at times minute by minute, with a rich cast of characters as they move toward battles that forever shaped their lives and evoked cultural and political conflicts that reverberate still.
In the Long Nguyen Secret Zone of Vietnam, a renowned battalion of the First Infantry Division is marching into a devastating ambush that will leave sixty-one soldiers dead and an equal number wounded. On the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison, students are staging an obstructive protest at the Commerce Building against recruiters for Dow Chemical Company, makers of napalm and Agent Orange, that ends in a bloody confrontation with club-wielding Madison police. And in Washington, President Lyndon Johnson is dealing with pressures closing in on him from all sides and lamenting to his war council, "How are we ever going to win this war?"
Based on thousands of primary documents and 180 on-the-record interviews, the story unfolds day by day, hour by hour, and at times minute by minute, with a rich cast of characters as they move toward battles that forever shaped their lives and evoked cultural and political conflicts that reverberate still.
Choose a format:
Buy from us:
- Simon & Schuster Audio |
- ISBN 9780743549127 |
- October 2003
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Praise
“The New York Times Book Review Maraniss...is a writer with a masterly sense of narrative pace....The tale unfolds with a magisterial sweep that recaptures the war and its era. ”
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“The New York Times Book Review Maraniss...is a writer with a masterly sense of narrative pace....The tale unfolds with a magisterial sweep that recaptures the war and its era. ”
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“Maureen Corrigan Fresh Air, National Public Radio My nominee for must-read nonfiction book of the year....They Marched Into Sunlight is that miraculous thing, a substantive, exhaustively researched work of history that reads like a novel. ”
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“The Economist A masterful work that brings the conflict back with a rush of cinema verité emotion and tension....Over the years, Vietnam has produced several classics, all of them different: Dispatches, by Michael Herr, and A Bright Shining Lie, by Neil Sheehan. Here is another. ”
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“Samuel G. Freedman Newsday The towering work of nonfiction this year....Maraniss' great achievement is to be epic and intimate at the same time. ”
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One: Sailing to Vung Tau
The soldiers reported one by one and in loose bunches, straggling into Fort Lewis from late April to the end of May 1967, all carrying orders to join a unit called C Packet. Not brigade, battalion, or company, but packet. No one at the military base in Washington State had heard of C Packet until then. It was a phantom designation conceived by military planners to meet the anxious demands of war.
The early arrivals were billeted on the far northern rim of the army base in a rotting wooden barracks with flimsy walls known derisively as "the pit." Many of them checked in at night after long...
Hear an Excerpt
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