Download or read book The American Cavalry in Vietnam written by Jacques-François de Chaunac and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2003 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colonel Lyman C. Duryea (Retired) is a West Point graduate and former Commander of "C" Company of the 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment in Vietnam in 1966. He served a second Vietnam tour as an advisor. In addition to various stateside assignments he served in Germany, France, the Congo, Panama, Haiti, and El Salvador. He is a graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff College and the Army War College. He holds Masters Degrees in Military Art and Science from the USAC & GSC, and French from Middlebury College. He has a Doctorate in Military History from Temple University. He has taught on the faculties of the Military Academy, the US Army School of the Americas, and the Army War College. His special interest is revolutionary theory. The action begins in October 1965 in the Vietnamese highlands. When the Green Berets and their allies, the Jarai montagnards are about to be submerged by North Vietnamese assaults, the Huey helicopters of the First Cav, as in Apocalypse Now, sow death in the communist ranks. From that moment on, there is no letup in the action. Ambushes, patrols, and large military operations follow one after the other. The author accompanies the infantrymen into the rice paddies, into the jungle, and on helicopters. He shares the life of the "sky soldiers." Documented using exclusively American sources, this book is also a work of military history. It traces the beginning of this unit, at once unique and autonomous, that has its own infantry, its own artillery, and its own airmobile logistical support system thanks to its five hundred helicopters. The First Cav, the most modern Division in the world created in Vietnam the Rambo myth. It is this same unit that, one hundred years earlier, was at the heart of the legends of the West fighting the Comanche and the Sioux. The Americans leave Vietnam in 1972 with the departure of the last brigade of the First Cav. In April of 1975 Saigon becomes Ho Chi Minh City. Who can say today who the real winner is? A planter in Vietnam in 1974 and 1975, Jacques-Francois de Chaunac lived through the end of the war in Long Thanh. With Francois d'Orcival he is the author of Marines a Khe Sanh (Presses de la Cite). Book jacket.