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Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding new Vietnam Memoir
Review: I read this in advance galley and submitted a review to a periodical. This is an outstanding book about a young lieutenant (Richard Taylor) who traveled to Vietnam as a boy and became a man very quickly. As he notes, he was looking for an adventure of a lifetime and he found it. Prodigal is a remarkably moving story. It is naturally enough a combat memoir, but it is a heartfelt and at times (almost too) personal autobiography detailing Taylor's pair of tours to Nam.His first was 1967, when Taylor was assigned to a veteran Army of the Republic of Vietnam outfit. Taylor details the patrols and enemy action, and the boredom and yearning for home very well. His tour ended with his involvement in the middle of the 1968 Tet Offensive, in which he was almost killed. The book is just starting. Taylor meets and falls for Sandy and the second half of the book is about his second tour and his long distance relationship (very sad, very moving). He returned in 1970 to lead Bravo Company (1/7 Cavalry). Without doubt Taylor was a good combat officer. He mentions a lot of other men and officers, offers assessments, is pretty straightforward about the whole affair. The book includes maps (which are good) and photos (which I have not seen as they were not in the advance galley). Prodigal is a fine story, and one of many finally coming from the pens of a generation of soldiers who gave everything they had and have yet to be fully thanked. Thank you, Colonel.
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