Böcker av Albert Dixon

Albert Dixon was an Artillery instructor in the US Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton in California in 1966 as the US involvement in Vietnam was beginning to escalate. This the story of his one year in Vietnam serving in two units of artillery. A 105mm howitzer battery and a 155mm battery.The author describes the arduous training undertaken in the US, Okinawa and the Philippines to prepare for the fighting in Vietnam as well as the long and cramped sea voyage.Once in Vietnam the author soon discovered that conventional artillery procedure was obsolete. The field manual had been rewritten to adjust to the kind of warfare being waged in Southeast Asia. Dixon describes in graphic detail the year he spent with his crew manning their howitzer in difficult and dangerous conditions for often days on end, giving supporting fire to the infantry fighting in the dense jungle.

This story was an idea that started years ago when my twin boys spent the summer with their grandmother in North Carolina. Listening to their stories and adding my adventures in Chicago, I came up with the story of a young boy raised by a single parent as my brother and I were. With gangs very prominent in our lives, we were shipped off to Michigan. Combining all this, I created my composite of Bobby. As for Gus, he was created to be a catalysis to provide Bobby with a path, and being a goose, he would be the most unusual messenger.