Journal of Patrick Seamus Flaherty, United States Marine Corps

Right when the book starts Patrick and his dad are talking on the front porch about Patrick enlisting in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. Once he reports he gets to Alpha Base by chopper. Alpha Base is in Korea and is where he gets all of his supplies. Later that day when he is flown into combat his platoon is doing sweeps, where they walk through the brush looking for Vietnam soldiers. They do sweeps every day. One foggy morning they are doing sweeps and Patrick sees something move, so he shoots at it. It was a five foot long cobra!

A few days later heavy artillery shells are being shot at them by the enemy. One of the bunkers collapses. When they first engage in combat ?Fox,? his good friend, gets hit in the stomach. Later in the book ?Hollywood,? another good friend, is digging trenches and digs up an artillery bomb. It blows him up and he sees he has gotten his legs blown off and then he dies. When that bomb was dug up Patrick and another recruit were stringing razor wire around hill 188S, their base. They get knocked into the wire by the explosion, and are medevaced back to Alpha Base. You?ll have to read the book to find out more.

This book is really thrilling at times. You will want to read it all in one day. This is quite good reading. There are also other books in the My Name is America Series. They are all good.

I recommend this book if you enjoy war books.