The Short-Timers by Hasford (1987, Paperback)

The test of a good writer is the ability to create a world and make you feel part of it. In his first novel "The Short Timers" Gustav Hasford doesn't simply place you in Vietnam, he makes you go through the 8 week draft era "accelerated" Marine Corps Recruit Training at Paris Island which he refers to as "an 8 week college for the phony tough and crazy brave."
We follow Private (and later Sergeant) James Davis (known to all as "Joker") from the the clutches of the sadistic Senior Drill Instructor Gunnery Sergeant Gerheim to the hell nightmare that was both urban and jungle warfare in the Republic of South Vietnam.
Hasford depicts the Marines as inquisitive and sometimes sadistic teenagers with powerful weapons and explosives wondering why they're fighting for a people who didn't seem to want to defend themselves. The romanticism of war is virtually non existent in the poignant piece and the reader finds himself sitting with the "lusthog squad" as they each tell "sea stories" of greatness in battle and dream of the day when they can mark off the last day on the "short timers" calendar that marked each day served "in country."
Joker gets to view the war as both a correspondent for a military newspaper and a grunt (foot soldier) and through out we get a sense of the desperation bred by war and how fragile the human mind is and can become. This novel is recomended reading for anyone who wants an insight to one of America's bloodiest and misunderstood conflicts.

I am a Viet Vet myself and I've read books about Vietnam written by Army combat soldiers. This book gives you a good lowdown on what the Marine recruits go through in basic and how almost everyone has a nickname. Private and Corporal Joker is a Marine who stands out quite a bit because of his sense of humor. You see what it is like to be in Vietnam as a Marine war correspondent. Then when he pisses off some Colonel Marine Lifer, it's off to humping the boonies and you get to live through the violence and the horrors of war. At Khe Sanh life is a hellish existence of mud, little sleep, incoming motars and shells, and lifers that you want to put out of their misery. It truly depicts the life of a Marine combat soldier and the amount of danger and good ole plain humping that they have to do and live through. The book is an autobiographical look at the life of one Gustav Hasford, what he goes through in basic and in Vietnam, and how all these things change his life forever. You have to do and see things that you never could have imagined. The violence is real but just as strong are the lifelong bonds that the combat Marines will make. This is a true classic about the times, stresses and challenges of the recruits and the grunts who carved out a distinct place in the tuburlent sixties and in the bone numbing tiredness that all combat soldiers went through as they humped their asses off in South Vietnam. I encourage all Viet Vets to read this book and anyone who wants to see just how hard a year in Vietnam can be. Semper Fi.