20,000 Men and Me

Rating:
Summary: The Most Amazing Woman!
Review: I use to fly with Mairlyn and she was the most Caring, Energetic, Loving, person I have ever known. Mairlyn never had a bad day or an unkind word, no mater what she was dealing with personally. When she went to cheer the troops it was from the heart and she wore her medals proudly! This book depicts a small portion of the wonderful things she did and the love & joy she shared. She is a fine example of an AMERICAN proud of her country, and doing what she could do. Her smile would light up a room, and leave you feeling good. Thank You Mairlyn for th friendship you showed me.

Rating:
Summary: The Most Amazing Woman!
Review: I use to fly with Mairlyn and she was the most Caring, Energetic, Loving, person I have ever known. Mairlyn never had a bad day or an unkind word, no mater what she was dealing with personally. When she went to cheer the troops it was from the heart and she wore her medals proudly! This book depicts a small portion of the wonderful things she did and the love & joy she shared. She is a fine example of an AMERICAN proud of her country, and doing what she could do. Her smile would light up a room, and leave you feeling good. Thank You Mairlyn for th friendship you showed me.

Rating:
Summary: One of THE mostunique experiences of the Vietnam War!
Review: In 1969 Marilyn Genz, a young TWA stewardess then flying the Pacific route taking men to and from the war Vietnam, met Major General Elvy Roberts, the soon-to-be Commander of the famous First Air Cavalry Division, then one of the most dynamic combat divisions in the Vietnam war. Genz convinced Roberts that a visit to the "First Cav" in the field by a single TWA stewardess would be a good public relations idea and, after much correspondence between Genz, TWA and the US Army, she was, astoundingly, approved to make two trips to visit the Division in the field in Vietnam, in June and December of 1969. Her charter was to visit ALL of the units of the Division, many of them engaged at the time in combat operations. At all times during her visits, Genz was at risk of injury or death by enemy action. She flew in Huey and Cobra helicopters, visited "grunt" infantry, artillery, aviation, medical and supply units scattered over an enormous area of jungle, was allowed to fire the 105mm howitzer during an artillery "shoot" against North Vietnamese units, and even landed atop fabled Nui Ba Den, or the "Black Virgin Mountain", to visit the isolated (and amazed) Americans there, in their aerie above the jungle. Genz wore her TWA stewardess's uniform during the entire trip, and a light blue vest over it, on which she pinned the patches, badges, crests and other military trinkets from the units and the men she visited. She was quite a sight. To my knowledge, except for war correspondents, she is the ONLY American civilian to have been accorded the opportunity for such visits by any combat division in Vietnam. She literally "dropped in" on my dirty, tired infantry company one afternoon in June of '69, like a vision of beauty in the ugliness of the war all around us. After an hour, she was gone, but the memory of that visit has lingered with the men of Alpha Company for thirty years. After the war, Marilyn attended almost every reunion of the First Air Cavalry Division, and was adopted by the Division itself as the "Sweetheart of the Cav". Her famous vest is now in the Division Museum at Fort Hood, Texas, and her book is truly one of the most unique annals of a single American civilian's experience with the war in Vietnam. What Marilyn saw during her visit was 20,000 average American men and boys, from Generals to Privates, doing their jobs as best they could, in a land far, far away. And she fell in love with them, as did every man who saw her or spoke to her during her all-too-brief sojourn among us. Written without artifice or ulterior agenda, this book is a fabulous read. If every American could have had Marilyn's experience, I don't think the support of our men in Vietnam by the American public would have ever been in question.

Rating:
Summary: 19,999 Men and Me
Review: You will undoubtedly be relieved to learn that the Cav didn't just cast Marilyn into the bush alone. General Roberts delegated Marilyn's jungle adventures to the division's larger-than-life public information officer, the Jolly Green Giant J.D. Coleman, who handed her off, apprehensively, to his most expendable junior escort officer -- me.

Now, Marilyn is just an itty-bitty thing and that "famous vest" of hers was so laden with military unit doodads that by the end of the day she didn't have the starch left to climb out of it. Which is where I came in handy.

Marilynn met 20,000 Skytroopers in 1969 and thousands more since. But, to the best of my knowledge, I'm the only one who ever took her clothes off.