Quang Tri Cadence: Memoir of a Rifle Platoon Leader in the Mountains of Vietnam

By Jon Oplinger

Having flunked out of college in the fall of 1965, the author enlisted in the U.S. Army. After basic training he was assigned to Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, an institution dedicated to the manufacture of the commodity the wartime army most quickly expends--rifle platoon leaders.

In June of 1968, he found himself leading a rifle platoon in D Company 2/5th, First Cavalry Division. Quang Tri Cadence draws upon the original maps used in Vietnam and upon the battalion radio logs which were recently declassified at the time of writing. Life in a rifle platoon is presented at the boot level with all its grit, bewilderment, fatigue and fear. This book is not about what the pentagon is pleased to call "violence processing"; this book is about ordinary events in strange places; it is about being "in the field" and coming home. The author's experiences at Kent State University during the shootings in May of 1970 are also recounted.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786477539
• ISBN13: 9780786477531
• Release Date: March 2014
• Publisher: McFarland & Company
• Length: 220 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 8.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Required reading in classes studying the Vietnam War

Oplinger's memoir puts the reader: on-point in the mountainous jungles with snipers in the trees, and in the doorway of helicopter gunships with the knowledge that incompetent officers were , unseen, calling the shots, and it puts the reader in military hospitals surrounded by tortured bodies, and it also puts us on rioting college campuses back home. Best of all this, thoroughly engrossing book puts a memory of the Vietnam experience on the "pass-it-around" circuit. I loaned my copy to my brother-in-law- (a Vietnam era vet himslf). I can't get it back, he's loaned it to another vet. But don't let me give you the idea that only vets want/need to read Oplinger's memoir. During the late '60's I spent my energies in anti-war demonstrations trying to get guys like the author and his platoon safely home to enjoy the decade the way we were enjoying it. This book is also a connector for the vets and those who weren't in 'Nam but who were home working so that no American "boys" had to be there. A bit of history worth re-visiting. Recently I visited D.C. with my teen-aged daughter. We found ourselves walking down the hill towards the Vietnam Memorial. At some point as we neared the Wall, I froze-up with emotions and pain as I discovered I could not approach any closer to the Wall and the memories of that war. Choked-up,I had to wait to attempt an explanation to my daughter. At home, handing her a copy of Quang Tri Cadence by Jon Oplinger, I said something like, "Read this, it'll help you understand the times, the War, and your Dad."