5Thomas White was a nineteen year old surfer living a sheltered life in Marin County, California. The year is 1966 and the Vietnam War is ramping up. Tom's idyllic existence is shattered when he's drafted into the U.S. Army.

Thrust into the heart of an infamous war, he opens his eyes and heart to a foreign land and its people. Tom shares insights about the relationships formed, experiences encountered, and the horror of war during this brief moment in a historic time. In addition to searing memories, Tom returned from Vietnam with a portfolio of candid photographs that bear witness to this life changing experience. His words and pictures illuminate a harrowing tale of war and the transformation of a soldier by chance.

In Thomas White's words:

I arrived in Vietnam with the 8th Battalion, 4th Artillery, in July of 1967. We left Da Nang and began our journey to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing South and North Vietnam. The Vietnamese on the opposite sides of this political boundary had more in common than those separated by the Mason Dixon Line during our own Civil War. Politics created the DMZ and the ensuing conflict. The Communist policies of the Soviet Union and China influenced North Vietnam, while the United States supported South Vietnam in its efforts to avert a Communist takeover. This created the perfect atmosphere for war. My Army .175mm gun battery spent most of its time close to the DMZ in Marine Fire Bases. The 175 was not in the Marine's arsenal. Our mission was considerably different from the infantry. We did not leave the compounds on patrol or chopper venturing into hostile terri-tory to capture a hill. For us, direct contact with the enemy was infrequent. From our firebases we sent 156-pound projectiles their way. The exhilaration of war that we experienced was in response to our adversaries' primary purpose of hurling their big projectiles back at us. The events that take place on the following pages are fairly accurate, given the passage of time. A few of the names have been changed to protect the guilty, or they have simply been forgotten. This is an account of Charlie Battery's time in Vietnam from July 1967 to September 1968. I have a particular Vietnam story to tell, and I hope this book accomplishes that mission.

Thomas White June 2020