A Hundred Miles of Bad Road

Rating:
Summary: A compelling account of Vietnam combat
Review: Dwight Birdwell and William Nolan have produced a very good personal account of an armored crewman's 16-month tour in Vietnam. In addition to absorbing combat narratives, Birdwell provides a lot of details and context to help readers understand his story. He gives explicit reasons why his unit's morale and performance deteriorated over his tour, and how the Tet Offensive changed the nature of the war. I highly recommend this book to any student of the military or the Vietnam War. U.S. military officers should read it for examples of how good leadership can inspire a unit, and bad leadership can cost lives. Birdwell highlights the role of good, solid NCOs as the beating heart of a military unit.

Rating:
Summary: A tremendous book with two, true stories
Review: Having read hundreds of books about Vietnam war combat from the perspective of infantry, Rangers, Special Forces, LRRPs, SEALs, and helicopter gunships, I was pleased to find a rare book dealing with American armor combat. With the help fo veteran Vietnam war book author Keith William Nolan, Dwight Birdwell has produced an action packed, easy to read, page turner on his 16 months in Vietnam with a 25th Division armor unit, protecting the main supply route from Saigon to Tay Ninh near the Cambodian border. Arriving Sept. 1967, pre-Tet Birdwell's service as a M48 Patton tank crewman, began with a well lead unit, high moral, and eager for a fight with the Viet Cong. Tet changed all that when Birdwell's unit was dispatched to Saigon where they ran headlong into an enemy regiment which had broke through the wire at Tan Son Nhut Air Base on January 31, 1968. Birdwell's bravery and initiative under intense enemy RPG and gunfire and panic of some fellow troopers won him a Silver Star and a Purple Heart. The narrative of the searing engagement draws one into the action like you are a witness to the blast of tank cannon and the whine of enemy bullets. Birdwell wins a second Silver Star at An Duc in July, 1968, while describing the steady decline of morale and efficiency as troopers realize Washington had no strategy for winning the war. Despite heavy combat, Birdwell manages to preserve his humanity and a measure of idealism, which motivated him to volunteer for Vietnam service, as a teenager. Upon his return to Oklahoma, Birdwell used his G. I. Bill to get an education and eventually earn a law degree and now practices law in Oklahoma City. Of Cherokee heritage, he served for two years as the Chief Justice of the Cherokee Nation. Birdwell's book provides an excellent map to conveniently track ambush and battle site. Also, there are 16 pages of photographs. His epilogue features a "status report" on many officers and troopers he served with and survived the war, including his squadron commander Glenn K. Otis, who went on to be Commander and Chief, U.S Army Europe. Birdwell's book should be on the must read list of every military officer and NCO who might serve in a ground combat unit or support them.

Rating:
Summary: TOPS THE LIST
Review: Having read hundreds of books about Vietnam war combat from the perspective of infantry, Rangers, Special Forces, LRRPs, SEALs, and helicopter gunships, I was pleased to find a rare book dealing with American armor combat. With the help fo veteran Vietnam war book author Keith William Nolan, Dwight Birdwell has produced an action packed, easy to read, page turner on his 16 months in Vietnam with a 25th Division armor unit, protecting the main supply route from Saigon to Tay Ninh near the Cambodian border. Arriving Sept. 1967, pre-Tet Birdwell's service as a M48 Patton tank crewman, began with a well lead unit, high moral, and eager for a fight with the Viet Cong. Tet changed all that when Birdwell's unit was dispatched to Saigon where they ran headlong into an enemy regiment which had broke through the wire at Tan Son Nhut Air Base on January 31, 1968. Birdwell's bravery and initiative under intense enemy RPG and gunfire and panic of some fellow troopers won him a Silver Star and a Purple Heart. The narrative of the searing engagement draws one into the action like you are a witness to the blast of tank cannon and the whine of enemy bullets. Birdwell wins a second Silver Star at An Duc in July, 1968, while describing the steady decline of morale and efficiency as troopers realize Washington had no strategy for winning the war. Despite heavy combat, Birdwell manages to preserve his humanity and a measure of idealism, which motivated him to volunteer for Vietnam service, as a teenager. Upon his return to Oklahoma, Birdwell used his G. I. Bill to get an education and eventually earn a law degree and now practices law in Oklahoma City. Of Cherokee heritage, he served for two years as the Chief Justice of the Cherokee Nation. Birdwell's book provides an excellent map to conveniently track ambush and battle site. Also, there are 16 pages of photographs. His epilogue features a "status report" on many officers and troopers he served with and survived the war, including his squadron commander Glenn K. Otis, who went on to be Commander and Chief, U.S Army Europe. Birdwell's book should be on the must read list of every military officer and NCO who might serve in a ground combat unit or support them.

Rating:
Summary: Told With Great Courage
Review: I am so glad that Mr. Birdwell and Mr. Nolan took the time to write this book. My father was killed in the battle of Hoc Mon that is described in the book. At the time I was 2 years old and never knew my father. My heart goes out to the Mr. Birdwell and all the men who served in the 3/4 horse. This book lets me know some of what my father went through during his time in Vietnam. I consider this book a great treasure.

Rating:
Summary: The Truth About Vietnam By Birdwell & Nolan
Review: I had no contact with Dwight Birdwell or the 3/4 Cav for 33 years, but the book took me back to Highway 1 last week. Accurate and truthful are the events and people (not the case in too many war memoirs). The photos are real troopers who got bloody. Even the dates were interesting for sorting memories.

One of my most vivid memories of the war had been Birdwell on a burning tank firing a .50 caliber machine gun until it glowed in the night, and his silhouette carrying out the badly wounded. That memory is in the book (Chapter 19) and accurate to the number of RPG's fired.

The lifers, loafers, heros, and base camp warriors are there also, warts and all. Read Tennyson for the glory of the cavalry, read Birdwell for the real thing.

Rating:
Summary: One Hundred Miles of Bad Road
Review: I've been a big fan of Keith William Nolan for quite some time. I read The Battle For Saigon with interest because I was a member of the 377th Security Police Squadron USAF that was given the task of defending Tan Son Nhut Airbase. I took part in the defense of the airbase during Tet 68. I read One Hundred Miles of Bad Road, after reading The Battle For Saigon, and finally realized just what Troop B, 3/4 CAV endured out on Highway One outside the west perimeter. The tenacity of the 25th INF and the leadership Lt. Col. Otis and Captain Virant was instrumental in thwarting the sustained ground attack by seven NVA/VC Regiments. This is an accurate account of the battle in and around Tan Son Nhut Airbase. I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: A Cherokee warrior fought in Vietnam as a tank commander
Review: So you want to know all there is to know about the Vietnam War? But did you know there are over 1,800 titles dealing with it? A Hundred Miles of Bad Road by double Silver Star winner Dwight Birdwell covers most of the key elements with" true grit" which John Wayne himself would be proud of.

For many of us who served in Vietnam,micro-managed by McNamara and similar desk commanders far from the action, Dwight Birdwell exposes the pre and post Tet Offensive for the crushing defeat the U.S. inflicted upon the North Vietnamese Army and their southern battering rams,the Viet Cong. Once the treacherous and fellow traveller U.S. media painted a false picture of American will and losses, "Bird" ( as he was known as by his fellow C Troop Armored Cavalrymen) leads you through the mire of leadership decline and enemy growth in III Corps, Cu Chi District,where he and his warrior band slugged it out night and day.

Cu Chi and its vast underground network "city" was the launch pad for the VC and NVA attack upon Saigon. Especially Tan Son Nhut Airport,where Dwight Birdwell won his first Silver Star atop his M48 tank,blazing away with the .50 cal. until out of ammunition,and then continuing while wounded with an M16. This Oklahoma Cherokee has the fighting blood of many generations of Cherokee warriors,but with incredible compassion and caring for the Vietnamese country people. They looked like and reminded him of some of the home folks around Bell,Oklahoma deep in the "Okie Ozarks" , his home.

Co-writer Keith W. Nolan with Mr. Birdwell is an accomplished Vietnam War author. Yet he failed to emphasize the impact of the Cu Chi District tunnel systems and warfare which allowed the VC and NVA to attack and disappear at will. Dwight Birdwell tried his own hand as a "tunnel rat" in one exercise only to return to his "Trac" or his tank while running the gauntlet of the MSR(Main Supply Route). Constant ambushes,mines and command detonated ordinance was a daily fact of life and death,while the enemy was always reported to "melt into the jungle". Not so. They went underground while our tanks and troops were treading or clanking away on top of them. Just as the Japanese were not on Iwo Jima,they were in it...the VC and NVA used primitive but spectacularly effective underground warfare tactics against "Bird's" 25th Division armored cav unit.

A Hundred Miles of Bad Road is a unique book by a good soldier who did his duty when America called. It went unspoken by Birdwell (or Nolan) but the reader is left to assume that the Vietnamese peddlars,whores with poncho ground "cloths" and dope dealers who would clamor around laagered tanks or APC's(armored personnel carriers) with their "wares" was just business as usual for people wracked by war,just trying to make a living. In fact, most of the locals "selling" the Yanks were spies,while prostitution and dope dealing were all part of the NVA and VC "quiet" assault against us. But we still traded with them,because SRTW (Sex Rules the World!)

Dwight Birdwell has high praise for his then Lt. Col.. Glenn K.Otis,later to retire as a 4 Star General Officer, as a great warrior leader who lead from the front and would not ask his men to do anything he wouldn't do. Real life fighting men are extolled by Birdwell: "Fighting" Frank Cuff, Gary D. Brewer, Jack Donelly, Bob Wolford,Mike Christie and many others. Normal American men molded together in battle,whose DNA held the strains of warriors reaching back in time through American and European history. How else can men do what they do to fight,defend and survive in battle? The intense training and American firepower (or technology) helps...but it comes down to "unit integrity" which Dwight Birdwell's team possessed. Until, of course, the KIA's, the WIA's, the rotations home,the replacements and the loss of will by the American people and our malingering politicians came to erode all aspects of the Vietnam War.

Mr. Birdwell really proves that America, never lost the war militarily. He exposes the rot which began during his extended tour,fomented by U.S. and South Vietnamese politicians and the Socialist/Communist intelligencia holding sway then,and now, on America's campuses. It was they who "lost" the War.

No Vietnam War library ,or class studying the War, should be without One Hundred Miles of Bad Road. Today Dwight Birdwell is an Oklahoma City sole practitioning attorney at law. His office is three blocks South of the new, national memorial to the 168 dead from the Murrah Building bombing. Dwight had seen this all before in 'Nam...an event which, sub rosa, still eats at most Vietnam veterans who saw combat action as Dwight Birdwell did. Read his book and let him tell it to you straight about our land -based war in Southeast Asia...from the view of a Tank Commander who survived a rolling coffin. Also, if you believe in premonitions or ESP...just count the number of life saving survival events "Bird" experienced...by mere seconds or millimeters !

Rating:
Summary: The Truth About Vietnam By Birdwell & Nolan
Review: This Is a story of truth from the men who were In vietnam.Nolan served in the vietnam war.And from reading this book he takes you there.And tells us the american people what we never knew that happened during this war.An amazing truthful book to read.I would give it ten stars."Truth In justice for all of our vets" They are the back bone of this country.The goverment should know. When our vets came home sick and dying from agent orange.Our goverment denied everything.Even the one who gave the orders to drop It. Killed his own son.When his son died he knew it was from agent orange. He later killed himself because of his guilt.Since he was a high ranking officer he was sworn to silence.Like all the other military officers. Our goverment does not care about the men who not only died for this country.Also the ones they killed and never admitted to.The cost to the goverment would be to great.So deny ,deny, at all cost. As the govement has always lied about our vets.When they came home sick from Vietnam also Saudi Arabia.The goverment denied all of this again.Deformed babies,cancer,of all kinds.The goverment again denied our men came in contact with any chemicals to make them sick.When it has been proven that the air they breathed and the contact with tanks were contaminated from Iraq weapons used on our military soldiers.WHY''

Rating:
Summary: An honest & personal account of Vietnam War '67 & '68.
Review: This is a very good book about Mr. Birdwell's experiences before, during and after the Vietnam War. It is especially sad to read about the deaths of men who served with Mr. Birdwell, and of the scars borne by the survivors. It contains gripping accounts of combat, and also has thoughtful reflections on the nature of the war.