The Ground You Stand Upon

“In Vietnam today, you will hold only the ground you stand upon.”

Step into the depths of the deepest dark forest and see this war through my dad’s eyes in this award-winning true story of his experience in Vietnam’s deadly Central Highlands.

Twenty-year-old Will Bowe is living on his family’s farm when he’s drafted in 1965. He and his impossibly young friends will become “skytroopers” in the 1st Air Cavalry Division’s new airmobile infantry. Flying into the jungle battlefield by helicopter, they soon learn what “search and destroy” means and face the reality of this new war.

Based on once-classified staff journals, situation reports, and military maps, we follow Alpha Company, 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry as they march through rice fields, search villages, climb jungle-covered mountains, and endure many harrowing battles.

From the war zone, Will sends home many of the photographs and letters now featured in this book, often scribbled in haste before another mission, or by flashlight under a poncho in the rain. They will travel over eight thousand miles across the ocean to be placed in a mailbox that stands across from a farmhouse along a dusty county road in Wisconsin.

Many fellow soldiers are interviewed for this story, as are family members and friends of the fallen. Recalling the humor and friendship they shared, along with the sadness and tragedy of a tour of duty in Vietnam, their memories are now woven together, along with the letters, photos, and reports, to tell of one infantry company’s war story: From their training at Fort Carson to their historic voyage across the sea, their first steps into the dark highland jungles, their many battles fought together, and eventually… their final patrol.