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Our War

The History and Sacrifices of an Infantry Battalion in the Vietnam War 1968-1971

By David W. Taylor

Our War is the only known history of an infantry battalion of the Vietnam War that is written in a narrative style instead of pages of excerpts from reports, and tables of data. This is the three-year combat history of the 5th/46th Infantry Battalion of the 198th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division.

The author himself served with the battalion he writes about in in 1969 where, in the course of 4-1/2 months he was hit from shrapnel from a mine; was hospitalized for malaria and was shot twice. At the National Archives Taylor copied over 23,000 pages of the battalions Daily Staff Journal, the brigade Operations Orders, Plans and Summaries and interviewed over 100 veterans of the battalion. In Our War he chronicles the battalion’s struggles with enemy as well as the changing tactics and attitudes among the infantry as the war changed from Search and Destroy missions to pacification and Vietnamization.

Taylor’s battalion, the same battalion the famed Vietnam War author Tim O’Brien served in, fought Vietcong (VC) guerillas in the most heavily mined area of the Vietnam War, the notorious Batangan Peninsula (near My Lai and “Pinkville”). The battalion also operated in the dense mountainous jungles against North Vietnamese (NVA) regulars and in three years located four NVA hospitals during their sweeps. In one enemy hospital they encountered two captured peasant women who had been used by the enemy for intravenous blood transfusions to wounded enemy soldiers and were barely alive when found.

The reader will learn the personal sacrifices of war experienced by young soldiers, the successes and failures of battles, and the experiences that would shape young men forever.