Which excerpt from A Rumor of War best illustrates Vietnam's uncomfortable climate?
By autumn, what had begun as an adventurous expedition had turned into an exhausting, inc
my
attrition in which we fought for no cause other than our own survival.
O But there were no Normandies and Gettysburgs for us, no epic clashes that decided the fates
nations. The war was mostly a matter of enduring weeks of expectant waiting and, at random
conducting vicious manhunts through jungles and swamps where snipers harassed us consta
cut us down one by one.
O The tedium was occasionally relieved by a large-scale search-and-destroy operation, but the
the lead helicopter into a landing zone was usually followed by more of the same hot walking
sucking at our boots and the sun thudding against our helmets while an invisible enemy shot
tree lines.
O Weeks of bottled-up tensions would be released in a few minutes of orgiastic violence, men
shouting obscenities above the explosions of grenades and the rapid, rippling bursts of autor