Rating: 
Summary: A great book
Review: This is one of the best books I have ever read. I felt myself interacting with all of the characters. I especially liked Buck Thompson who seemed like a fun person. This book should be required reading for all high school/college students. The sacrifices that men like Crocker, Carhart, Hayes, Kiley, Thompson
and Bonfias made is heroic.
Rating:
Summary: The class of '66
Review: This was my age. I am female, but learned a great deal about the academy and Vietnam thru this wonderfully written account. The characters were substantial and complete. I praise Rick Atkinson and I thank him.
Rating:
Summary: Simply Outstanding
Review: To anyone who lives outside of the United States, the term West Point is synomous with military leadership. But how, someome is made into a West Pointer is always being a little engimatic. Rick Atkinson's brilliant book tells us what is like to attend West Point and also the leadership of men in combat and the pressures of command. His depiction of the West West Point years of the Class of 66 are great and full of stories that you would not read elsewhere. The Class of 1966 suffered West Point's greatest number of casualties in Vietnam and that section of the book is almost impossible to put down. The fight on Hill 875 is documented with great care and gives some idea of what a waste war is. The period after the war is also documented with great sensitivity especially the incident at the DMZ in August 1976 when Captain Art Bonifas was murdered by vengeful North Korean guards.My only complaint with the new edition is that it could have gone into more detail about what class members have done since the original publication as some of these men were trusted with some of the US major military commands.
Rating:
Summary: Long Gray Line, West Point 66 Class from School to Combat
Review: What an exciting, engrossing book. You live the life of a plebe in the semi-pre-war, more casual era, then become wrapped in the clouds of the gathering storm clouds as the class progresses. You learn to know and love, hate, or appreciate each of the members as though you are there with them.
Through the lengthy reading process, you learn a great deal about life at West Point, rituals, bull, bonding, and training.
Finally you end up in combat and find that the enemy doesn't chose to play by many of the rules that you were taught, that you need to adapt or die. You learn that the order of allegiance becomes your foxhole buddy, your squad, your company, and way down the line becomes some distant concept of why we are fighting this war...you are fighting to protect your men, your friends.
As men who are as real to your as your own classmates die, you grieve with the author. As men begin to harden and tear, you begin to understand Post-traumatic Stress. As men race against odds you begin to understand the terms from other books like "a hail of bullets", "SNAFU", "CYA", "Duty, Honor, Country."
At the end of the book, you are fatigued, you need R&R, you want to go sit and have a beer with your friends and family and sit with the dog and watch the kids play in the neighborhood. You look a little differently when the flag goes by in the next parade.
Rating:
Summary: Inspiring
Review: With no previous knowledge of USMA, I read this book in high school. To make a long story short, a couple years later I found myself a plebe at West Point. My roommate had done the same thing. Can a book be so powerful?
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