Baptism: A Vietnam Memoir Book

This is a very good memoir by a line infantry officer who spent most of his tour as a Company XO. It is told in a very straightforward matter of fact style, without pretension or exaggeration. The author served with 2/7th Cavalry between the first US main unit commitment in 1965 through till 1966. He saw action as part of the relief for 1/7th at LZ XRay Of "We Were Warriors" movie fame and the following debacle at LZ Albany.

One of the primary facts to come out of this account was the relatively poor quality of key leaders im this man's tour including the Battalion Commander who led the battalion into the ambush at Albany and one of the Company Commanders, who was ultimately relieved for incompetence, but not before he had been responsible for the unnecessary deaths of several of his own men, perhaps the 80/20 rule in operation. Remembering that this book recounts events that took place during the early phases of American involvement that particular failing did not bode well the general quality of counterpart commanders on the other side. The dead wood had been weeded from their ranks or killed before the Americans arrived, that left battle hardened competent officers in charge for the most part and it told.

It seems that the poor quality of much of the American officer corps and its poor usage, (ticket punching for career purposes)was to plague the entire length of American involvement and it got progressively worse as indicated by the ever rising incidences of fragging of incompetent or dangerous officers as time went on. This fact is also mentioned frequently as a major contributing factor in psychological breakdown among American combat troops who served in Vietnam