Chapter 1: Fox Goes To War.  The book opens with the first serious encounter Fox Company, 2^nd Battalion, 5^th Marines has with a North Vietnamese Army, NVA, unit at the Demilitarized Zone.  Without hesitation and displaying exceptional heroism, the Marines defeat the ambushing force but not without sustaining their first significant casualties.  That evening, the principals, both officers and senior non-commissioned officers, reflect on how things had changed since they arrived in Vietnam seven months earlier, in March 1966, when the war could be better branded as an insurgency.  Their nostalgic reflection, laced with humor, portrays the character of this Marine Corps infantry company.

Chapter 2: Gunny Jones.  Most front line infantry companies achieve success in battle on the strength of their top field non-commissioned officer.  The specific position for the Marine Corps is the company gunnery sergeant.  He is the principal tactical advisor to the company commander.  He rides the troops unmercifully; some swear he has “eyes in the back of his head”.  Others warn replacement personnel to stay away from the gunny if they want to survive their tour of duty.  The more junior non-commissioned officers realize this company gunnery sergeant, mean as he is, is keeping them all alive.  Gunny Jones distains lieutenants as a bunch of immature fraternity kids.  The battalion commander and sergeant major relate “Gunny Jones” stories, further amplifying his character and reputation throughout the battalion as a tough, “by the book” Marine.  Jones takes charge of the company when the company commander gets severely wounded.

Chapter 3: Demanding Commander.  The new company commander is wholly unique.  Unlike his predecessor who was a young officer, loved by his men and easy going, the no-nonsense Captain Graham takes command of Fox Company with extremely high expectations.  Graham, a former enlisted Marine who had been selected to be an astronaut, had been to numerous professional infantry schools before taking command.  Immediately, all note that he doesn’t smoke, drink, nor swear.  He carries a bible with him in the field and, when back at the home base of An Hoa, gets on his knees to say his nightly prayers.  Initially, he pushes the company harder than they had been pushed.  Troop resentment naturally follows, though nothing Gunny Jones can’t squelch as he supports his new commander.  Graham’s reputation grows as combat successes follow and keep Fox in the limelight.  Soon even the company clerks want to go on operations with the field Marines.

Chapter 4: Union II.  Perhaps the most frequently used end to the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the northern portion of South Vietnam is the Que Son Valley.  This area is the home of the 2^nd NVA Division and had been under Communist control for twenty-five years.  On May 12, 1967 Operation Union terminated after 14 days of heavy fighting with the NVA and Viet Cong losing over 1,000 dead and captured.  The need for a follow-on operation was imperative.  Fox Company is flown to the Que Son Valley to augment the 1^st Battalion for the Union II Operation on May 27th, 1967.  Only minor enemy contact occurs until the last day of the planned operation, June 2nd.  While crossing a large rice paddy, Fox Company is ambushed by an enemy battalion.  There begins the most bloody, single-day battle in the company’s history.   So many courageous acts occur simultaneously that most survivors have no clue what actions others are enduring.  The reader will be drawn into the battle and empathetically suffer with the men.  Dramatically more embroiled in the fight than the other two companies, Fox kills over 400 enemy, has thirty-two of its own men killed and sixty-one wounded.  Even though out of ammunition, Captain Graham’s selflessly protects a wounded Marine at the end of the battle and posthumously earns the Medal of Honor.

Chapter 5: Nong Son.  Fox begins rebuilding on the very next day from its low of sixty-four men.  By July 3^rd Fox has ninety-three men with a goal of reaching 160 Marines and corpsmen.  On that day, Fox travels to a hillside defensive position by a coalmine, called Nong Son.  The troops considered Nong Son to be a “rest and recuperation” area.  What nobody knows until night had fallen is that 200 NVA soldiers have been creeping up the hill to attack it at midnight.  The action begins at 11:30 pm.  The enemy takes a portion of the hill.  The Fox company heroes begin their mutual support and push the large enemy force off the mountain.  Private First Class Newlin, a machine gunner with nineteen counted wounds, posthumously wins the Medal of Honor for his ability to repel more than three waves of enemy attacks and for firing on the main body of NVA force – causing confusion and disruptions of their ranks.  Fox suffers seven killed and forty-three wounded.  The enemy sustains thirty-nine killed.

Chapter 6: The Calm Before The Storm.  This chapter bridges the Nong Son counterattack story and the battle for Hue City seven months later.  Replacement Marines and corpsmen, many of whom will be prominent in following chapters, are introduced.  Told in a humorous manner, there’s a remarkable story of one of the principals jumping on an enemy grenade that doesn’t explode.  The chapter delves deeply into the day-to-day life for the average trooper showing their bravado, fear, goof-ups, and misery in the cold, rainy, monsoon season.  Fox Company leaves the An Hoa operating area and is flown to Phu Bai, near the coast.  The chapter ends with a legendary Fox story, wherein two of the “saltiest” troops slip into an Army NCO club, tell real “sea” stories that include Union II and Nong Son before realizing it is too late to return to the Marine encampment unless they pull off something crazy.  Which, of course, they do.

Chapter 7: Hue City.  The company operates blissfully for two weeks before accidentally engaging a North Vietnam Army unit that is trying to get in place to launch their “Tet Offensive”.  Two days later, on January 31, 1968, the enemy invades and captures Hue, the nation’s second largest city and ancient capital.  Fox and handful of other rifle companies leave the rice paddies twenty miles to the south and fly into Hue to defend the beleaguered US command post and retake the city.  Immediately, bloody street fighting begins.  Each day is filled with fighting a determined enemy, who stubbornly defends each building and each inch of road.  Foul weather traps the men inside the city and makes air support plus re-supplying impossible. The acts of heroism by the men of Fox are characteristic of other warriors who, after a month, liberate the city.  In this bloody battle Fox suffers twenty-one killed and over 150 wounded, with many of the men wounded twice.  The defeat of an enemy division by the few Marine battalions and supporting elements earns Fox a Presidential Unit Citation.

Chapter 8: Defending the Street Without Joy.  The heroes leave Hue City and are trucked back to their old operating area south of Phu Bai along the coastal National Highway 1 that links Hue City and Danang.  Many of the younger combatants who survived Hue City are now squad leaders.  The action is minimal but the lack of characteristic discipline and the activities of men trying to “beat the system” result in some delightfully humorous stories.  The last one involves the new company commander ordering a Army bulldozer operator to push a whore house off the cliff behind the establishment with many of the Fox Company Marines and neighboring soldiers betting on the outcome, then cheering madly when it happens.

Chapter 9: The Return To An Hoa.  At the end of July 1968 a small contingent force at the An Hoa base, where the battalion left in January, is under attack.  The battalion is ordered to return, relieve the small force, and turn the area over to their parent command, the 5^th Marines.  Fox and Echo Companies conduct a night, heliborne assault immediately relieving the pressure on the small force.  They fight vigorously the next day before they come back to An Hoa for a breather.  Waiting for them is their the new company commander.  He looks at the “heroes” of Hue City who had just been fighting for the past two days and thinks, “These can’t be the fine Marines their Hue City company commander had just told me about.”

Chapter 10: Fox Gets A “Maggie’s Drawers”.  This short chapter is mostly a humorous story about the company’s first patrol in the An Hoa valley under their new Captain.  While patrolling along the valley’s prominent river, the lead platoon spots six Viet Cong soldiers loading two small boats with supplies they’ll take across the river.  After waiting with anticipation along the river’s bank, the men of Fox zero in on the hapless enemy who begin to cross the river.  Fox opens up after the VC get a third of the way across.  Bullets kick the water all around the enemy who make their escape by swimming ashore, climbing up the bank, and disappearing into the jungle.  A total miss or a “Maggie’s Drawers” as they call it at a rifle range leaves the men in disbelief and identifies the need to have the battalion armorer examine the weapons.

Chapter 11: Napalm.  Within a week the company leads the battalion on an operation into enemy territory.  The new battalion commander, an old “China Marine,” keeps a watchful eye on the company.  When a short round from a Marine 81mm mortar kills one of the men, the company commander outposts the hamlet where the accident occurred instead of occupying it.  In the morning, after learning the displeasure of the battalion commander, Fox starts out on the attack against a dug-in reinforced enemy company.  A substantial firefight occurs with the company killing twenty-three enemy and capturing a prized 75mm recoilless rifle.  Fox sustains two men killed and twenty-one wounded.  Overall they feel good about the skirmish, relax, and eat lunch before returning to the base.  Due an error in identifying a target, an F-4 Phantom believes Fox’s 2^nd Platoon is an enemy unit.  The men in total disbelief see the jet speeding toward them; then they stare in horror at napalm canisters sailing flawlessly at them.  Their description of being incinerated by the burning jelly is gripping.  An empty CH-53 helicopter miraculously flying nearby evacuates twenty-six burned men.  Fox Company limps back to a defensive position overlooking Liberty Bridge to rebuild.

Chapter 12: Ambush Near Liberty Bridge.  New men are dropped off daily by truck at the hilltop defensive position.  After a month of no enemy activity, Fox is ready to begin offensive operations.  On the final night there, September 11,1968, one of the platoon-sized patrols departs for its night ambush position late.  The delay allows a Viet Cong unit to get into an ambush position and wait for the platoon.  The platoon’s lead squad is all but wiped out.  The company moves to the ambush site, and in the morning, attacks the hamlet from where the enemy had fired.  The men’s emotions are volcanic.  From that moment Marines of Company F gain a lust for enemy blood. 

Chapter 13: Fox Company Wanted Dead Or Alive.  Three weeks later Hotel Company gets partially over run and needs support.  Fox races to their location and arrives at dusk ready for a fight.  At three in the morning Fox leaves Hotel’s position to conduct a predawn attack on a small village on Go Noi Island, the middle of enemy territory.  They quickly find the fight for which they had been lusting.  Fox and the mixed NVA/VC company engage in intense hut-to-hut fighting until nightfall.  Fox suffers only one man killed and fourteen men wounded.  The enemy loses twenty-seven killed and an unknown wounded as they escape further into their territory.  Fox marches back into Hotel’s position as victors with three POWs, countless number of enemy weapons and all of the equipment and weapons lost by Hotel the day before.  The write up of the battle in the Stars and Stripes Magazine gets to Hanoi Hanna who cautions, “And now to the Maleens of Fox Company, beware I have placed you on my ‘Wanted Dead or Alive List’.”

Chapter 14:  Pissing Off An NVA Prisoner Of War.  This chapter provides an insight into the minds of the Marines who are now full-time warriors and focuses on POWs and psywarfare in the average Marines’ Vietnam life.  Their day-to-day outlook is no longer filled with fear of the enemy; rather their focus is trying to minimize the miseries of living in a primitive environment.  Fox flies north of An Hoa to the “Arizona Territory” for a week without encountering any enemy, then back to An Hoa where they meet the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps.  Afterwards they travel to Go Noi Island and capture a young North Vietnamese Army soldier who had wondered away from his unit and is sick with malaria.  Fox’s company commander, fluent in Vietnamese, converses with the young man who divulges much during their conversation.  The company commander casually mentions his conversation with an inquiring officer on the battalion staff.  Later that night when the battalion’s psywarfare team from the ridge above begins broadcasting over loudspeakers for the prisoner’s friends to surrender, the young POW protests vigorously.

Chapter 15: Operation Henderson Hill- The McGoo Episode.  This chapter focuses on booby-traps and the impact they had on the Marines who endured them daily. After the POW incident, Fox flies over the ridge with the battalion staff to a large isolated lake, shaped like an alligator, in search of an enemy hospital.  During their five days of searching without finding any evidence of a hospital or any other signs of enemy activity, the company enjoys the privacy of a mountainside lake to relax, swim and clean their muddied uniforms.  The company is called to return to An Hoa by sweeping the ridge during their 15-mile trek back to the base.  McGoo, a nickname for a bi-speckled replacement, detonates a 50-pound box mine.  The next day the company begins the grim, detailed search for enough body parts to confirm that actually two men went up in the explosion. The chapter ends with Fox returning to the base to enjoy the only beer in the regimental camp.

Chapter 16: Operation Meade River.  In late November, 1968, the company participates in one of the largest cordon and search operations the 1^st Marine Division conducted in Vietnam.  From all locations, twenty-eight rifle companies rapidly surround an area south of Danang they refer to as “Dodge City”.  For five days the company holds its position while other companies maneuver toward them tightening the noose around the entrapped enemy.  Then Fox closes its segment of the entrapment.  Finally, along a river Fox waits again while the enemy is again driven toward them.  Tension mounts as the other Marines across the smaller encirclement often fire in their direction.  The tension is mixed with boredom that, before long, is replaced by humorous pranks.  The chapter ends on a heart-breaking note when one the best and most popular machine gunners is seriously wounded in a booby trap explosion.

Chapter 17: Operation Taylor Common.  The enemy no longer exists in force in the An Hoa valley.  Thus, on a cold rainy morning, Fox is lifted up into the mountains southwest of An Hoa to begin a couple of months of mountain warfare, attempting to push the NVA back into Laos.  No longer are the firefights over the small hamlets surrounded by rice fields; rather, now the brief enemy encounters are over the control of valley paths that lace the steep, lush mountains.  As always there are both exciting firefights displaying the heroism characteristic of Marine Corps rifle squads and, in Fox’s case, practical tension-relieving jokes the troops play on their seniors.  Santa Claus’s visit on their isolated mountaintop is a wonderful, uplifting event. 

Chapter 18: Bugged, Bombed and Beaten.  In the three weeks after Christmas, Fox loses almost 60 men who were stricken by malaria.  The 1^st Platoon on January 2^nd discoveries a weapons cache of 185 new weapons.  Brown, ready to rotate back home after six months with Fox, turns in his equipment and then is suddenly called back to the field to let the battalion commander bid him farewell.  The captain’s helicopter hits the top of the China Marine’s hilltop, rolls down the mountain, and burns.  The bruised and bloodied Skipper and the China Marine have a good laugh as all survive.  A new, clearly eccentric skipper reports aboard.  On February 22, 1969, USMC aircraft accidentally attack the 2^nd Platoon with two 500-pound bombs.  On June 7^th Fox is assaulted as they guard a portion of the perimeter at An Hoa.  Among the dead from the attack is a young Marine who, earlier that afternoon, boasted, “He would be famous one day.”  The chapter explains the validly of his prognostication.  The final event tells of the most famous boxing match in that era which took place at China Beach called, “The Battle of Amtrac Beach”. 

Chapter 19: Fox Gains The Upper Hand.  The enemy is essentially beaten in the An Hoa valley although you wouldn’t have believed if you had been there with Fox.  As the senior NCOs would explain to their “newbys”: “Before it was like supper where the cow, the chicken and the pig were all fully committee to the meal.  Now, It’s more like breakfast: the cow’s just providing the milk; the chicken’s just providing them eggs; but that pig, he’s still very much committed!  And here in ‘Nam we don’t know if we’re going to be that darn pig!”  To complete tilting the table against the enemy, the 5^th Marines sent Fox’s parent battalion north to Hill 65 to begin operations in that area and began “Rice Denial Operations.”  Fox hits a home run on December 16^th.

Epilogue.  The epilogue is set in the current period.  It affords the reader to get a glimpse of the men they had read about earlier in the book. Since 1990, Fox Company Vietnam vets and their families have been meeting biennially on a rotational basis, alternating between the West Coast, central US, and East Coast.  The numbers attending has risen from 60 to well over 200.  About 60% of attendees are vets and the rest are wives, grown children, and now even grandchildren.  Friends of Fox from other rifle companies come as well.  The re-bonding of the veterans is instantly visible, almost as if they haven’t left the war.  Beginning on Wednesday afternoon or Thursday, whenever vets can arrive, the four-day reunions all have a similar format with only three “set in stone” events: the business meeting on Saturday morning, the banquet on Saturday evening, and the Memorial Service on Sunday morning.  The rest of the time is divided between taking bus tours to local bases or other significant military-related landmarks, playing golf, lounging at the hotel pool and, as always, telling “sea stories” in the hospitality suite.  Since Fox doesn’t leave Vietnam until March 1971 the final 15 months are told in a panel format by vets of that era.  Even though only a few enemy existed in 1970 and until March 12, 1971, the date Fox departs, during that timeframe the area of responsibility for the 5^th Marines expands as other Marine Corps organizations are withdrawn from the war.  As a result, new more-mobile operations are developed and refined wherein the enemy are often pursued by helolifted Marines.  The “battlelines” from the panel members are as well told as those of the previous years.  Fox veterans always remember their fallen comrades.  Their names are read and any vignettes added at the memorial service.