Mixing personal memory and cultural history, Brennan's poems chronicle the joys, sorrows, and astonishments of a now-vanished 20th-century America.

"The division's expendables." That's what one division commander called the 1/9th Cavalry Blues during the Vietnam War. The Blues were perpetually understrength aero-rifle platoons considered to be acceptable losses in hopeless situations-but their amazingly successful record proved otherwise.

A harrowing firsthand account of mortal combat, this is the remarkable story of the soldiers who served in the First Air Cavalry Division's reconnaissance squadron. Included is the account of an air-ground raid that overran a regimental command post and killed more high-ranking enemy officers...