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  • Nam-Sense: Surviving Vietnam with the 101st Airborne

  • By: Arthur Wiknik Jr.
  • Narrated by: Todd McLaren
  • Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (42 ratings)

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Nam-Sense: Surviving Vietnam with the 101st Airborne cover art

Nam-Sense: Surviving Vietnam with the 101st Airborne

By: Arthur Wiknik Jr.
Narrated by: Todd McLaren
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Publisher's Summary

An honest tour of the Vietnam War from the soldier's eye view... 

Nam-Sense is the brilliantly written story of a combat squad leader in the 101st Airborne Division. Arthur Wiknik was a 19-year-old kid from New England when he was drafted into the US Army in 1968. After completing various NCO training programs, he was promoted to sergeant "without ever setting foot in a combat zone" and sent to Vietnam in early 1969. Shortly after his arrival on the far side of the world, Wiknik was assigned to Camp Evans, a mixed-unit base camp near the Northern village of Phong Dien, only 30 miles from Laos and North Vietnam. 

On his first jungle patrol, his squad killed a female Viet Cong who turned out to have been the local prostitute. It was the first dead person he had ever seen. Wiknik's account of life and death in Vietnam includes everything from heavy combat to faking insanity to get some R&R. He was the first man in his unit to reach the top of Hamburger Hill during one of the last offensives launched by US forces, and later discovered a weapons cache that prevented an attack on his advance fire support base. 

Between the sporadic episodes of combat he mingled with the locals, tricked unwitting US suppliers into providing his platoon with a year of hard-to-get food, defied a superior and was punished with a dangerous mission, and struggled with himself and his fellow soldiers as the anti-war movement began to affect his ability to wage victorious war. Nam-Sense offers a perfect blend of candor, sarcasm, and humor, and it spares nothing and no one in its attempt to accurately convey what really transpired for the combat soldier during this unpopular war. 

Nam-Sense is not about heroism or glory, mental breakdowns, haunting flashbacks, or wallowing in self-pity. The soldiers Wiknik lived and fought with during his yearlong tour did not rape, murder, or burn villages, were not strung out on drugs, and did not enjoy killing. They were there to do their duty as they were trained, support their comrades, and get home alive. 

"The soldiers I knew," explains the author, "demonstrated courage, principle, kindness, and friendship, all the elements found in other wars Americans have proudly fought in." Wiknik has produced a gripping and complete record of life and death in Vietnam, and he has done so with a style and flair few others will ever achieve.

©2005 Arthur Wiknik, Jr. (P)2018 Tantor

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The candid nature of the story.

Most enjoyable. Really enjoyed the detail to help explain the lay person understand what was going on.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent Book, couldn't stop listening

A different realistic view of war in Vietnam. Easy to listen too and really enjoy his own accounts which differ from others than I read/listen too on Vietnam. Thank you for your service.

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  • Tim
  • 21-03-2023

Should have been titled 'Non-Sense'

One of the worst books about Vietnam I've read. Full of cliches, and most of the stories don't ring true. The battle scenes are described like a guy who's only heard about them.

You'll enjoy it more if you treat it like a work of fiction

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    5 out of 5 stars

Great story from individuals perspective

I found that following the year of this soldiers time in country, his revealing story of the way things happened from arrival to the departure, very telling.
The history of the conflict is well documented, but does not mention the finer details that are revealed in this narrative.
My own service was in an allied nation that has been with the USA since Korea, and my time was 2001/04 Middle East zones with the ISAF. Now discharged medically unfit since 2010 with severe PTSD & TBI as well as a few other injuries, I have completed my phd in modern Asian History.
Overall, I had found this one of the better books on infantry in SVN, however I would disagree with the closing lines about supporting the war. Support the soldiers YES, absolutely, they had no choice. But the war, none of it should have been allowed to happen. There should have been no interference from the USA in the first place.
There was no democracy to defend, protecting French rubber plantations and colonial rule is not a reason for the US and allied soldiers to be sacrificed.
That aside, this story does bring home the difference between the conscipt/draftees and the regulars/lifers. The mind games that are played, how people are used in section or platoon positions, based on what they are.
Even the way rank is obtained, whether from training and promotion or field promotion. It seems funny that an NCO is no good in the eyes of senior officers if he wasn't field promoted, but a green officer who could wipe out a platoon had to be tolerated... Irrespective!
I minor point I disagree with at the end, but that does not detract from an otherwise excellent book, well worth the effort and highly recommended.

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