NO SAFE SPACES
2nd edition
Follow a 17 year old Marine recruit through Marine Corps boot camp at Parris island and a combat tour in Vietnam. The gripping accounts of ambushes in the jungle, firefights in rice paddies, and night watches in listening posts. There is humor, horror, sadness at the loss of friends and primal fear. There is also bravery. During the entire Vietnam war, only one platoon in the US Marine Corps was awarded the Meritorious Unit Citation. The engagement that brought about that distinction resulted in the members of that platoon being awarded a Medal of Honor, a Navy Cross, three Silver Stars, and a number of Bronze Stars. You will feel as if you were present when an under strength squad attacked an enemy force that outnumbered them fifteen to one, in order to prevent a rocket attack against the airbase in Da Nang. You will meet the young men, most of them still in their teens, who fought that brutal war.
An expanded version of the best selling first edition. This second edition adds boot camp and infantry training. Three of the Parris Island drill instructors his boot camp platoon served in Vietnam at the same time as the recruits they trained. Two of them were killed in action. Members of the boot camp platoon, including the drill instructors, fought and died in battles from Da Nang to Khe Sanh. One drill instructor was a platoon sergeant whose unit was almost wiped out on the ghost patrol during the siege of Khe Sanh.
This was a time when Marine infantry units experienced casualty rates approaching 85%.
There were no safe spaces.
The second edition of No Safe Spaces is available in e-book and softcover formats from Amazon.
The 1st edition of No Safe Spaces was a series of true short stories written by a Marine who arrived in Vietnam when he was 18 and left when he was 20. The first edition is no longer in print and was replaced by the 2nd edition which includes all of the first edition and another 70 pages.
The first of the stories was published as an ebook on Amazon on Sept 25, 2018, and immediately rose to be the #1 New Release in the History category. That story was Ambush at the Waterfall.
Three of the short stories in the 1st edition are available on Amazon:
Ambush at the Waterfall
Overrun
Battle For Danang
The first in a series of true war stories by a 19 year old Marine in Vietnam. During Operation Mameluke Thrust, not long after the TET offensive, the 7th Marine Regiment of the 1st Marine Division went in search of the North Vietnamese Army forces in the jungle covered mountains where the enemy lived and prepared for their attacks. The Marines were hunting, and the NVA were ready for them. One of the several battles was an ambush at a waterfall where almost an entire Marine platoon was lost.
The second story in the “No Save Spaces” series. In June 1967 two rifle companies and the headquarters element of the 1st Battalion 7th Marine Regiment was conducting a sweep through the mountains where the North Vietnamese Army had their base camps. The Marines spent an entire day climbing through dense jungle to the top of Hill 1062. That night they were attacked and overrun by North Vietnamese sappers who breached the perimeter, throwing satchel charges and grenades and firing their AK 47’s. The most frightening word a Marine infantryman can here is, “Overrun.”
The third story in the “No Save Spaces” series. Durng the TET offensive of 1968, thousands of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops moved to attack Danang. The 7th Marines were positioned on small combat bases surrounding the approached to Danang.
The enemy failed to take Danang because small groups of Marines, sometimes outnumbered 15 to 1, stood in their way.