OUTPOST OF FREEDOM

Captain Donlon won the Congressional Medal of Honor last year for his heroic work during the battle of Nam Dong while wearing the green beret of our Special Forces. 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 commision at OCS. 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. In this part of the book, the reader experiences every mortar shell, grenade explosion and rifle shot.