Innocence Dies
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At last Sick Man heard what he sought, the sounds of men moving quietly through the brush. These men were disciplined, he thought. They’ve done this dozens of times and yet are still taking their job seriously. There was no talking, no laughing, just the stealthy sound of quiet progress. Then he saw them. Three men in black pajamas walked warily along the thin trail. Sick Man’s muscles tensed as the VC moved past a monstrous tangle of creepers covered with giant mushrooms. It was, he knew, an impossible task he had set for himself and the two neophytes. The VC were half a step past the hiding men when Zsigmond began his move. So much adrenaline pumped through his system that his body sang as he thrust himself from his hiding place. From the other side of the path Johnson and Post simultaneously uncoiled from cover. The shining loop swung through the air, sinking over the head and around the neck of one VC. The handles snapped ferociously and the doomed man’s head literally burst from his body while his trunk spouted a sudden fountain of gore. Post’s rush was as quick. One hand crushed down on his target’s face while the Randall knife arced through space and into the second VC’s back. The man’s hands grabbed Post’s arm, trying to push away the fingers clamped over nose and mouth. His body twisted and jerked, like some marionette gone insane, and then sagged as life fled from it. Zsigmond’s hands were his only weapon. His left hand gripped the chin of the third VC and wrenched upward while his right hand, fingers extended and rigid, clubbed at the base of the man’s skull, breaking his neck. Sick Man followed through by wrenching the man’s chin leftward. He let the body sag to the ground, its head twisted nearly 180 degrees out of normal position. Sick Man sighed as he stood above his fallen enemy. Post sat on the ground staring at the bloody knife in his hand. Johnson was on his hands and knees, softly retching. Vomit splashed on the headless torso beside him. Jan’s whisper was soft and understanding, yet relentless. "O.K. To be expected. Get hold of selves. We must do this thing one more time. These three will be missed soon."
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About the Book
Douglas MacArthur Andrews, a college student caught up in the idealism of the Kennedy era, is a small town Nebraska boy from a wealthy family. Against his mother’s wishes, he enrolls in ROTC, determined to become an Army officer who will make a difference. He is commissioned, completes Officer Basic, Jump and Ranger schools and like his friend Don Stoddard, is posted to Vietnam. Doug goes to a line company as a platoon leader while Don works at Brigade headquarters. Doug learns much about surviving in combat from his platoon sergeant, Jan Zsigmond, a professional warrior. As the months pass, faced with the reality of the war in Vietnam, Doug becomes ever more withdrawn, shedding his illusions one after another. Even a friendship with his Brigade chaplain, Major Paul Eastley, only slows his slide into his own personal hell. Doug finds that "making a difference" is more difficult than he once thought. As he tells his lover, Army Nurse Nancy West, whom he meets while recuperating in a hospital from malaria and exhaustion, "things change people." Conflict builds between Doug and the Vietnamese Le Qui Thanh, a former VC guerrilla now come in from the jungle to serve with U.S. forces as a translator and expert adviser on guerrilla warfare. The two men set forth on a course that only one will survive. Brigade commander Colonel Vernon "Savage" Moore is determined to break the back of the VC threat in his area of operations. The assault force includes the company that Andrews, now a captain, commands. Stoddard warns Moore that Doug Andrews is burnt out and should be transferred from command. Moore angrily refuses. In only a few days Captain Doug Andrews will have completed his year in ‘Nam. And then everything goes wrong.
About the Author
Award winning author, Cecil B. Currey, was the perfect person to write INNOCENCE DIES. A popular university history professor who has taught classes on Vietnam for nearly twenty years, he also wore an Army uniform for thirty-nine years, first as an enlisted man in the Army Medical Service and then as a Reserve chaplain, retiring in 1992, as a colonel. Acclaimed by reviewers here and abroad, Currey has written four previous nonfiction works focusing on Vietnam, three of which have made international headlines, and one of which, VICTORY AT ANY COST: THE GENIUS OF VIETNAM’S GENERAL VO NGUYEN GIAP, was nominated for a Pulitzer and received the 1997 annual book award of the Association of Third World Studies. His writings have brought him international recognition and he is listed in WHO’S WHO IN AMERICA and WHO’S WHO IN THE WORLD. Currey knows both the Army and Vietnam. Despite his fervent anticommunism, he was one of the first American scholars to be allowed back into Vietnam by its Communist authorities after the fall of Saigon in 1975. He has made several research trips to that land traveling from near the Chinese border in the north to the Ca Mau Peninsula in the south. He has talked with those in every level of Vietnamese society from rice paddy peasants to those in the highest levels of government. Currey lives with his wife Laura in South Florida.