OUTPOST OF FREEDOM

Captain Donlon won the Congressional Medal of Honor last year for his heroic work during the battle of Nam Dong and while wearing the green beret of our Special Forces. His account of his life up to the time he went to Viet Nam is blandly undistinguished. He recounts early school days and religious training in Saugerties, N.Y., jobs he had, his middling academic career, and 19 months as an enlisted man in the Air Force. Then he got bitten by the West Point bug, won an appointment but washed out scholastically, boned up, returned, and finally resigned for personal reasons. Soon he was off in the Army and won a commission at OCS. After a few years' general duty, he transferred to Special Forces, our counter-insurgency unit, and from there on his story becomes gripping indeed. During the battle of Nam Dong, Captain Donlon received four separate wounds in a Viet Cong mass attack, but he continued to direct his team's actions throughout the night. The reader experiences every mortar shell, grenade explosion and rifle shot.