Rockets Like Rain: A Year in Vietnam

by Dale Everett Reich

Ten men from the little town of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin were killed in the Vietnam War; Dale Reich survived. He wants his hometown heroes and the war that took them to be remembered. This is the story... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1555716156
• ISBN13: 9781555716158
• Release Date: January 2020
• Publisher: Hellgate Press
• Length: 156 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.7" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

One man's story

Not since 'Apocalypse Now' has a Viet Nam story moved me so deeply. The film made me feel the raw fear and mindless cruelty of war. When the GI's stepped off the boat to face the unknown terror of the faceless jungle ahead of them, I, too was gripped in fear and panic. The impact of that emotion has never left me. Often, I have wondered how I would have behaved had I truly had to face the reality of that fear. Dale Reich talks about that fear. He faces the evil that I only suspected was lurking in that jungle. He was changed by it, as you will be after reading this book.Rockets Like Rain is one man's very poignant, very personal, and very honest account of a year in Viet Nam as an infantryman. Simply written and profoundly deep, it is a book that stays with you long after you have turned the last page.

A Great Read

A friend gave me Rockets Like Rain as a gift. Not liking "war stories", I opened the book with hesitation. From the first paragraph, where Reich is kicked out of the university, I was hooked. Reich conveys the atrocities of war with passion and kindness. His strong writing style decribes life in the field, without the usual unsavory details and four letter words. As a woman, I found this particularly enjoyable.Rockets Like Rain is a classic memoir which should be required reading for middle and high school students. It would truly help them understand history.

The Worst and Best of a Year in Vietnam

Picture a soldier, a draftee and combat correspondent, under the protective arm of the Army's Public Information Office, facing near certain death just days prior to the completion of his one year tour of duty in Vietnam, and a mere 72 hours before his final departure from Duc Pho. The soldier, in fact, is closest to death during those few hours, while buffered by the firebases surrounding his brigade headquarters, than at any time during the year of his enlistment. Enemy rockets rain down like fireworks as a sendoff.That soldier is Dale Reich and his story, ROCKETS LIKE RAIN, reads like a letter home written by a young and lonely and frightened recruit. The year is 1969 and the place is Vietnam where death has no "moratorium". It is always in the air -- a malevolent presence, one whose spectral face a soldier might not even glimpse before the falling of its axe. Vietnam, we are reminded, was a place where death could come as easily in the form of friendly fire as from bullets fired purposely, or randomly, by the enemy.From reading Reich's vivid account, told movingly in simple and unadorned language, one gains an understanding that people, caught in the maelstrom of a war, devoid of direction or mature leadership, can be warped beyond recognition. Vietnam, Reich tells us, was a place where every soldier's individual craziness had room to grow, in moist, fertile soil, into full blown madness. (Note: Dale Reich was a co-editor of the official newspaper of the 11th Infantry Brigade of the Americal division, the one which produced the My Lai Massacre.)One also learns that the individual soldier could also exercise reason and caution, and even strive to be removed from action in the killing fields. It was Reich's struggle to resist the insanity that makes one realize that not every new and inexperienced soldier is automatically a killing machine.Though painful to read, ROCKETS LIKE RAIN delivers a powerful message and a necessary reminder to those of us who are currently counting statistics about Afghanistan, and who think we may, with the passage of time, be able to put our nightmares about the carnage of war safely aside. It reminds us forcefully that war -- any war -- however conducted or concluded, lives on in the memories and lives of our veterans, and that those memories deserve a respectful forum.I am grateful to Dale Reich to be so reminded.

An On Target Portrayal

A truly eye opening view of that forgotten war in Viet Nam. Dale Reich's realistic portrayal of his months as a front line soldier put the reader there too. I could visualize the unbearable surroundings and constant fear felt by the soldiers. This book enhanced the respect I have for those who had and have to endure what Reich did. My appreciation and praise to Dale for his sincere and successful effort in the production of Rockets Like Rain.

Rockets Like Rain

For anyone who was alive during the Vietnam war era, or for someone who seeks a sense of what that war meant to Americans at the time, this is a "must read". "Rockets Like Rain" is more than the story of one man's experiences in Vietnam. I am sure those who were there will appreciate Mr. Reich's ability to articulate the sense of duty and bravado that was overtaken by a sense of futility, fear and basic instinct for survival, that was the experience of many. Some, like me, successfully "surfed" the deferment loopholes, or just plain got lucky when the lottery system was implemented and thereby avoided the horror of going to war. Never-the-less,our experience included the apprehensions, fears and anxieties; the uncertainty of our futures and the questioning of our country's motivations and integrity. This is my recollection of the Vietnam era; one that Mr. Reich "fleshes out" in the early chapters of "Rockets Like Rain". Read this Book!