The Boys of '67 Charlie Company's War in Vietnam

When the 160 men of Charlie Company (4th Battalion/47th Infantry/9th ID) were drafted by the US Army in May 1966, they were part of the wave of conscription that would swell the American military to 80,000 combat troops in theater by the height of the war in 1968. In the spring of 1966, the war was still popular and the draftees of Charlie Company saw their service as a rite of passage. But by December 1967, when the company rotated home, only 30 men were not casualties—and they were among the first vets of the war to be spit on and harassed by war protestors as they arrived back the U.S. In his new book, The Boys of ’67 , Andy Wiest, the award-winning author of Vietnam’s Forgotten Army and The Vietnam War 1956-1975 , examines the experiences of a company from the only division in the Vietnam era to train and deploy together in similar fashion to WWII’s famous 101st Airborne Division. Wiest interviewed more than 50 officers and enlisted men who served with Charlie Company, including the surviving platoon leaders and both of the company’s commanders. (One of the platoon leaders, Lt Jack Benedick, lost both of his legs, but went on to become a champion skier.) In addition, he interviewed 15 family members of Charlie Company veterans, including wives, children, parents, and siblings. Wiest also had access to personal papers, collections of letters, a diary, an abundance of newspaper clippings, training notebooks, field manuals, condolence letters, and photographs from before, during, and after the conflict. As Wiest shows, the fighting that Charlie Company saw in 1967 was nearly as bloody as many of the better publicized battles, including the infamous ‘Ia Drang’ and ‘Hamburger Hill.’ As a result, many of the surviving members of Charlie Company came home with what the military now recognizes as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—a diagnosis that was not recognized until the late 1970s and was not widely treated until the 1980s. Only recently, after more than 40 years, have many members of Charlie Company achieved any real and sustained relief from their suffering. In the spring of 1966, while the war in Vietnam was still popular, the US military decided to reactivate the 9th Infantry Division as part of the military build-up. Across the nation, farm boys from the Midwest, surfers from California and city-slickers from Cleveland opened their mail to find greetings from Uncle Sam. Most American soldiers of the Vietnam era trickled into the war zone as individual replacements for men who had become casualties or had rotated home. Charlie Company was different as part of the only division raised, drafted and trained for service. From draft to the battlefields of South Vietnam, this is the unvarnished truth from the fear of death to the chaos of battle, told almost entirely through the recollections of the men themselves. This is their story, the story of young draftees who had done everything that their nation had asked of them and had received so little in return – lost faces of a distant war. In the spring of 1966, the war was still popular and the draftees of Charlie Company saw their service as a rite of passage. But by December 1967, when the company rotated home, only 30 men were not casualties--and they were among the first vets of the war to be spit on and harassed by war protestors as they arrived back the U.S. In this book, the author examines the experiences of a company from the only division in the Vietnam era to train and deploy together in similar fashion to WWII's famous 101st Airborne Division In the spring of 1966, while the war in Vietnam was still popular, the US military decided to reactivate the 9th Infantry Division as part of the military build-up. Across the nation, farm boys from the Midwest, surfers from California and city-slickers from Cleveland opened their mail to find greetings from Uncle Sam. This book tells their story. Chronicles Charlie Company's experience during the Vietnam War--from the draft to the battlefields--celebrating the disparate characters that made up the group and promoting its importance as the only company that was made up almost wholly of individualsdrafted for the Vietnam War