Baronne saw men spinning, dying, others running, moving out of range, but not soon enough. He aimed his M-16 into a pocket of V.C., squeezed off rounds methodically. There were more than one hundred of them, and more were coming.
"We got to move, Colonel-or they'll be on top of us!"
Baronne, saw that only the river offered a way out. "We get into the water," he said, "and We're goners."
Bertram peered down the midnight riverbank.
"We could try that way."
"No," Baronne said in his smallest voice, as he shook his head. He understood now. He accepted that their only answer was to stand, there, and fight. To stay, do their heroic best, and die, probably. "No, damn it!" Baronne fired into the Cong repeatedly. "We win this one, gentlemen, or we lose it. But here we stay, and here we're going to fight it out!"
A FEW GOOD MEN
"For MY money, the author, the men he served with and commanded, and the composite figures about whom he writes with understated but clear affection his first novel-well, the word for any of them is 'hero. "
— J. N. Williamson
Author of The Longest
"If you ever wanted to learn about Marines, read this book. It's right on the money."
—Scoop Adams
Colonel, USMC, Ret.
"The best damned Vietnam novel I've ever read. And I've read them all."
-John McDowell
USN, USAF, Master Sergeant