Sgt. Slag Krummel returns to the army in 1962 after six years out. He was infantry, now he's assigned to a Communications Security detachment at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. Vietnam is looming. His troops are a bunch of drunken, fighting wackos. They're too intelligent, some too sensitive, and all too young, easily subject to boredom. Private Joe Morning is one of Krummel's charges. He has the most rage of them all. He becomes Krummel's friend and enemy.

Tension and bad feeling build as the det moves inexorably toward a deployment to Vietnam, traveling in civilian civvies because they're not supposed to be there. The good times are gone as carousing turns into tragedy, wounds and death.

This book should be a minor classic. It exposes the ugliness of men , and some women, in war. I'm surprised I haven't seen it before. Thank god for used book stores. ( )

Terrific book and best ASA novel ever written, period. This book has been in print almost continuously for nearly forty years now. I'm not surprised. I first "discovered" OtCC around 1971 and it was like reading about my own first hitch in the Army Security Agency and all the crazy guys I served with. Except this is fiction, and there are some memorable and absolutely unforgettable characters here, in the protagonist, Slag Krummel, and his best-friend-sometime-nemesis, Joe Morning. About a platoon of hard-drinking and fornicating ditty-boppers, TA's and DF-ers who are a tight bunch - in more ways than one. The story is set in the Philippines and Vietnam in a time when many Americans had never heard of that small country. But check your history. The first U.S. casualty in Vietnam was an ASA soldier. I loved this book so much I bought several copies and passed 'em out and sent them to my buddies. In the past 37 year I have probably re-read this book several times. It gets a little better each time. Author Jim Crumley died on 17 September 2008, out in Missoula, MT, at the age of 68. Since OtCC, he wrote several acclaimed hard-boiled private eye mysteries that won him a faithful readership not only in this country but also in Europe, particularly France, where he was very popular. I've read some of those books, including his last one, The Right Madness (2005). Crumley was a masterful storyteller and he still had it with that last book. I always hoped for another story of Slag Krummel. No such luck, I guess. R.I.P., Jim. You'll be sorely missed. ( )

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