A WORLD OF HURT

Jeff Madsen and David Sloane, one a Western loner, the other a pampered but bored East Coast kid, join up for the Special Forces--Green Berets--in the mid-Sixties. No overwhelming urge to kill or defend liberty prompts them--they're both really just hungry for a change of scene. Madsen, a communications specialist, proves to be a flop as a soldier; he goes to pieces when his patrol is attacked by VC and the patrol leader killed. Meaninglessness swamps him, to the point of insubordination and discharge. Sloane, on the other hand, proves to be quite the gung-ho demolitions man, with one spectacular and daring blow after the other. But then he meets up with the plangent and lovely Trinh (""Soon you go back America. You leave me. You love me, David, you take me with you"") and loses his heart. Still, Sloane ends up going back to the bush despite this dreadfully clichÉd love affair. Unfortunately, nearly everything else here is equally clichÉd --in the dreariest, most inertly fabricated sort of Vietnam novel.