Call Me Sergeant Rock

Book excerpt: Sergeant Rock evolves from a native, baseball-playing, church-going Christian and skinny college kid to a well-trained killing machine in Vietnam. Leaving California to take part in the Tet Offensive in 1968, he finds the culture shock between the two overwhelming. Thrust into war and killing, he finds his approach to life and death must change quickly, but he holds fast to his beliefs. Though he saves others, his attitude toward killing and death changes for the worse, while his approach toward life improves. Sergeant Rock is a much better person for the choices he makes. In the course of a single Tet Offensive battle, his company loses all but 13 men, as 126 soldiers die in two hours. His faith increases when he meets his guardian angel during the battle. Sergeant Rock pushes his squad to their limits because he knows that death may lie just beyond the next bush. He may be only 20, but he thinks like an old veteran. With the body count in his mind, he wonders if he can ever be around normal people again. He experiences many horrors and watches friend after friend die as heroes. The hardships his squad must face, such as going without fresh water or clothes for 57 days, being shot down in a chopper, and just trying to stay alive are overwhelming. How much can our minds take before they crack? Sergeant Rock believes divine intervention is the only reason he is alive to tell his story.