About Face: Odyssey of an American Warrior

About Face: Odyssey of an American Warrior

by Col. David H. Hackworth and Julie Sherman

Hardcover Cloth 875 pages. Condition Very Good Dust Jacket Very Good. Presumed First edition Second printing 1989 with corresponding number line. Handsome olive green and black boards with gold embossing shows off this Clean, tight, square copy with no marks, highlights or bookplates. Book Well kept and carefully stored in unread condition. Slight shelf wear. An unclipped dust jacket smooth, clean and brilliant with a few wrinkles and chips - the usual shelf wear. Not an ex-library, book club or remainder copy. Heavier than standard book; S&H will be adjusted.

Called "everything a twentieth century war memoir could possibly be" by The New York Times, this national bestseller by Colonel David H. Hackworth presents a vivid and powerful portrait of a life of patriotism.

From age fifteen to forty David Hackworth devoted himself to the US Army and fast became a living legend. In 1971, however, he appeared on television to decry the doomed war effort in Vietnam. With About Face, he has written what many Vietnam veterans have called the most important book of their generation.

From Korea to Berlin, from the Cuban missile crisis to Vietnam, Hackworth's story is that of an exemplary patriot, played out against the backdrop of the changing fortunes of America and the American military. It is also a stunning indictment of the Pentagon's fundamental misunderstanding of the Vietnam conflict and of the bureaucracy of self-interest that fuelled the war.

Heavily decorated Colonel Hackworth narrates his life and disillusionment during Vietnam. Orphaned before he was a year old, he found his home at 15 in the Army. In Korea, heroism gave him a battlefield commission at 20. During the Cold War, he commanded at the Berlin wall and the Cuban missile crises. But Vietnam led to disillusionment.

Hackworth explains in the book what went wrong with the U.S. military establishment after the Vietnam War and offers suggestions for how to reform it, many of which were profitably implented years later. ABOUT FACE is colorful, easy to read, inspiring and presents valuable insights into the nature of war and the human character. Recommended for adults and secondary school students with an interest in the Korean and Vietnam Wars.