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Steel My Soldiers' Hearts: The Hopeless to Hardcore Transformation of U.S. Army, 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry, Vietnam
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About Steel My Soldiers' Hearts: The Hopeless To Hardcore
Product Description In January 1969, one of the most promising young lieutenant colonels the US Army had ever seen touched down in Vietnam for his second tour of duty, which would turn out to be his most daring and legendary. David H. Hackworth had just completed the writing of a tactical handbook for the Pentagon, and now he had been ordered to put his counterguerilla-fighting theories into action. He was given the morale-drained 4/39th—a battalion of poorly led draftees suffering the Army's highest casualty rate and considered its worst fighting battalion. Hackworth's hard-nosed, inventive and inspired leadership quickly turned the 4/39th into Vietnam's valiant and ferocious Hardcore Recondos. Drawing on interviews with soldiers from the Hardcore Battalion conducted over the past decade by his partner and coauthor, Eilhys England, Hackworth takes readers along on their sniper missions, ambush actions, helicopter strikes and inside the quagmire of command politics. With Steel My Soldiers' Hearts, Hackworth places the brotherhood of the 4/39th into the pantheon of our nation's most heroic warriors. Review Harold G. Moore Lieutenant General (U.S. Army, Ret.), coauthor of We Were Soldiers Once...and Young A riveting, candid and hard-hitting combat narrative by one of the top few brilliant battlefield leaders in the history of the U.S. Army. Outstanding! The Washington Post Book World An exceptional warrior...a soldier's soldier. The Philadelphia Inquirer [Hackworth is] perhaps the best military leader this country has had since Patton. Frederick W. Smith chairman, president and chief executive officer, FedEx Corporation Col. David Hackworth is a national treasure....If you are interested in leadership, character, values and commitment to mission, you need to read this book. About the Author Colonel David H. Hackworth served in the military for twenty-five years and received 110 medals for his service. He is the author of About Face, Hazardous Duty, The Price of Honor, and Steel My Soldiers’ Hearts. He died in 2005. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. CHAPTER ONE 9th Infantry Division Headquarters, Dong Tam, Vietnam 15 January 1969 "It's a pussy battalion, Colonel. I want tigers, not pussies." I had to hand it to Major General Julian Ewell. Twenty-five years after his kick-ass command in Bastogne, the old paratrooper was still firing for effect. He had sent stateside for me to fix one of his busted units -- 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry of the 9th Division -- right then out in Indian country getting its clock cleaned. "The 4/39th is the worst goddamn battalion I've ever seen in the Army, Hackworth. It couldn't fight its way out of a retirement home." He thumped the desk in front of him. It took some doing to keep a straight face. As a lieutenant colonel with over two decades of my life invested in the Army, though, I wasn't about to piss off General Ewell. You didn't spend a day in green without learning about his reputation for ruthlessness. He swung his ax with a high-pitched war cry: "You're gone. You're history." And you were. We sat in his office in Dong Tam, half an hour by chopper from Saigon. The 9th Infantry Division's flagpole was planted -- as if anything but rice could be planted in the Mekong Delta -- just outside the general's window. Ewell's flagpole. Ewell's division. And Ewell's reputation at stake. And the poor, sorry 4/39th was letting him down. He unconsciously jiggled his hand in a tight semicircle, thumb and pinkie extended like the hands of a watch, ticking off the points he wanted to emphasize. "Pussy battalion." Tick, tick. "I want tigers...." Tickety, tock. His hand gyrated like a whirligig. I'd known Ewell for years, a combat veteran gone long in the tooth, his days as a warrior behind him. Sure he was steamed, but if you looked closely you could see that the heat hadn't taken the creases out of his immaculately ironed fatigues. But before the starch, Ewell h
