Author Description

As a first lieutenant, Bill van Zanten was a company executive officer in the first stateside Marine unit committed to combat in 1965. A year later, Captain van Zanten was one of the 'Magnificent Bastards' of the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, fighting in the boonies near hill 69, outside of Chu Lai. Van Zanten's experience in Vietnam is very different from the pictures made in Hollywood. It had a soldierly professionalism built on sound and rigorous training. Dedication and boot camp forged the volunteer Marines of the early war years, so that when the stakes went through the roof in Vietnam, commitment of man to man and man to unit was total. There was a soldier's intimacy, and a soldier's humour. Together they meant survival, and that is what this memoir is about.