Steel My Soldiers' Hearts: The Hopeless to Hardcore Transformation of the U.S. Army, 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry, Vietnam

Colonel David H. Hackworth, one of America s most decorated soldiers, lays bare his most daring and legendary tour of duty.

1966
With a full year of Vietnam combat and five months of in-country intense after-action analysis under his pistol belt, Hackworth pens the classic tactical handbook the Vietnam Primer with military historian Samuel Marshall. In a radical shift from the World War II-era tactics then employed in Vietnam, Hackworth stresses the necessity of using disciplined, small units of well-trained men to best fight the hit-and-run warfare of the elusive Viet Cong. "Out G ing the G," he called his tactics.

1969
Hackworth s expertise lands him back in Vietnam. The Army s message is clear-put up, or shut up. Given the "hopeless," morale-drained 4/39th-an infantry battalion of poorly led draftees with one of the Army s worst casualty rates-Hackworth leads from up front and finds the best in every one of his grunts. Together, they take a page from the VC, write their own book, and become the meanest in the Mekong Delta-the Hardcore Recondos.

2002
With the U.S. again facing elusive insurgent foes-and the hit-and-run tactics of the international terror networks we re presently up against-the 4/39th Hardcore Battalion s successes provide hard-won lessons-learned that are more applicable now than ever.

A tour de force of frontline combat action, Steel My Soldiers Hearts takes readers alongside sniper missions, into grunt ambush actions, above fields of fire with hard-hitting helicopter strikes, and inside the quagmire of command politics. Hackworth graduates the Mekong Delta brotherhood into the pantheon of our nation s most heroic warriors.