Blood on the Risers: An Airborne Soldier's Thirty-five Months in Vietnam by John Leppelman

I could never ever have hacked it there. Reading this was an exercise in desensitization. Harrowing, riveting, and horrible, as in this relatively mild little snippet from the aftermath of Dak To:

"In the early dawn, as first light started to seep through the canopy, the brush started moving directly in front of my position. Several of us took aim on the foliage as a man staggered out, yelling at us in English not to shoot him. It was a survivor from the disaster below. As he made his way through our line, we saw that a large chunk of his skull was missing, and we could actually see his brain. He told us that after the NVA had overrun Alpha's position, they started executing all the survivors by shooting them in the head. Many men had begged for mercy but were executed. He had lain in a pile of American bodies while a gook had placed a rifle barrel against his head and pulled the trigger. By some miracle the bullet had glanced off his head, taking a big chunk of skull, hair, and flesh. He had been stunned but recovered and, once it was dark, escaped back up the mountains."