Night Work — Dennis Foley

The Jungles of Vietnam, Where Nightmares Are Real And Daydreams Are Death

For Captain Jim Hollister, operations officer for Juliet Company LRPs, Vietnam presented endless opportunities to fail, screw up, or die a grisly death. His job was to provide training, organization, and leadership -- and if he didn't train his men right, he'd have to bury them.

The mission of Hollister's LRPs was to find, fix, and kill VC south of the Lao-Cambode-Viet border. But pulling off recon patrols, ambushes, and prisoner snatches in that flat and treeless southern part of Vietnam was a lot different -- and deadlier -- than operating in the dense jungles of the highlands.

Night inserts, terrifying landing zones, choppers under fire, and murderous VC ambushes were all part of combat patrolling for the LRPs. But for Hollister, the losses and the pain went hand in hand with the courage and selfless dedication to teammates under fire that were the heart and soul of being a LRP....