Patrol: An American Soldier in Vietnam Paperback - 2005

First line

THE LAND OF MY ENEMY has wide valleys, mountains that stretch along the far horizon, rushing brown rivers, and thick green forests.

From the rear cover

Vietnam.

A young American soldier waits for his enemy, rifle in hand, finger on the trigger. He is afraid to move and yet afraid not to move. Gunshots crackle in the still air. The soldier fires blindly into the distant trees at an unseen enemy. He crouches and waits -- heart pounding, tense and trembling, biting back tears. When will it all be over?

Walter Dean Myers joined the army on his seventeeth birthday, at the onset of American involvement in Vietnam, but it was the death of his brother in 1968 that forever changed his mind about war.

In a gripping and powerful story-poem, the award-winning author takes readers into the heart and mind of a young soldier in an alien land who comes face-to-face with the enemy. Strikingly illustrated with evocative and emotionally wrenching collages by Caldecott Honor artist Ann Grifalconi, this unforgettable portrait captures one American G.L's haunting experience.

Media reviews

Citations

• Black Issues Book Review, 05/01/2005, Page 66
• Booklist, 12/15/2004, Page 731
• Ingram Children's Advance, 01/01/2005, Page 55
• Kliatt, 01/01/2005, Page 28
• Publishers Weekly, 01/03/2005, Page 0
• PW Notes and Reprints, 01/03/2005, Page 58
• School Library Journal, 04/01/2005, Page 57