The Eyes of the Eagle: F Company LRPs in Vietnam, 1968 [Paperback]

In the 101st Airborne, if you cared enough to send the very best, you sent The Howlers.

Gary Linderer volunteered for the Army, then volunteered for Airborne training. When he reached Vietnam in 1968, he was assigned to the famous “Screaming Eagles,” the 101st Airborne Division. Once there, he volunteered for training and duty with F Company 58th Inf, the Long Range Patrol company that was “the Eyes of the Eagle.”

F Company pulled reconnaissance missions and ambushes, and Linderer recounts night insertions into enemy territory, patrols against NVA antiaircraft emplacements and rocket-launching facilities, the fragging of an unpopular company commander, and one of the bravest demonstrations of courage under fire that has ever been described.The Eyes of the Eagle is an accurate, exciting look at the recon soldier's war. There are none better.Gary Linderer is the publisher of Behind the Lines, a magazine that specializes in US military special operations. He served in Vietnam with the LRPs of the 101st Airborne Division, earning two Silver Stars, the Bronze Star with V device (for valor), the Army Commendation Medal with V device, and two Purple Hearts.June 6, 1968
 
I thought that I had experienced heat and humidity, having spent the first twenty years of my life suffering through the hot, muggy summers back in Missouri. But as I stepped off the Pan Am 727 at Bien Hoa Air Base, Republic of Vietnam, it didn’t take me long to discover that heat—Asian style—was an entirely different animal. It was only 11:15 in the morning, but I was drenched with perspiration before I crossed the tarmac apron. Each breath sucked in more of the heavy, moisture-laden air, until I felt like I was a hundred pounds heavier. When I looked back across the runway at the rows of parked military aircraft, they seemed to be suspended in a layer of quivering, transparent gelatin. The hl3