"The 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry had the dubious distinction of being the unit that had fought the biggest battle of the war to date, and had suffered the worst casualties. We and the 1st Battalion."
A Yale graduate who volunteered to serve his country, Larry Gwin was only twenty-three years old when he arrived in Vietnam in 1965. After a brief stint in the Delta, Gwin was reassigned to the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in An Khe. There, in the hotly contested Central Highlands, he served almost nine months as executive officer for Alpha Company, 2/7, fighting against crack NVA troops in some of the war's most horrific battles.
The bloodiest conflict of all began November 12, 1965, after 2nd Battalion was flown into the Ia Drang Valley west of Pleiku. Acting as point, Alpha Company spearheaded the battalion's march to landing zone Albany for pickup, not knowing they were walking into the killing zone of an NVA ambush that would cost them ten percent casualties.
Gwin spares no one, including himself, in his gut-wrenching account of the agony of war. Through the stench of death and the acrid smell of napalm, he chronicles the Vietnam War in all its nightmarish horror.
Reader Reviews
One of the few narratives to come out of Vietnam that digs deep under the camouflage of a sensitive yet tough infantry officer.AUTHOR Larry GWIN took over thirty years to reveal this wonderful memoir,and readers will surely feel the wait was worth it. BAPTISM is not merely an I-was-there war story,even though it blasts its way through some of the bloodiest encounters of the war. Rather,this book is the haunting story of a man who was proud to answer his country's call to arms,urged on by family history and the single mindedness of Yale ROTC training (ranger,airborne all the way).To such an idealist,the mud-and-blood sacrifice and idiotic blundering inherent in war was almost certain to offer a very painful baptism indeed.Whether he is describing the anguish of seeing comrades blown to bits by friendly fire or an act of cruelty imposed on a boom-boom girl,the author's eye is merciless and all revealing.Gwin deals with the twilight of war,bringing those of us who were grunts back to the alien landscape we struggled against but did not understand.His book is lyrical at times,all about the death of valor and the angry rebirth of an American fighting man,"doomed from here to eternity". VETERANS will recognize the honesty of this book,while civilians,especially women,will better understand the flak jacket that conceals every combat soldier's heart. A MAGNIFICENT book. It should be enjoyed along with Joseph Galloway's and Hal Moore's WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE AND YOUNG,a best seller that provides a big picture of the FIRST CAV in combat, and covers some of the battles and firefights so poignantly described by LARRY GWIN.
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