The Long Gray Line; The American Journey of West Point's Class of 1966

Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. xiii, [3], 592 pages. Illustrations. Author's Note. Interviews. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Lawrence Rush "Rick" Atkinson IV (born November 16, 1952) is an American author, most recently of The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777, the first volume in the Revolution Trilogy. He has won Pulitzer Prizes in history and journalism. After working as a newspaper reporter, editor, and foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, Atkinson turned to writing military history. His seven books include narrative accounts of five different American wars. His Liberation Trilogy, a history of the American role in the liberation of Europe in World War II, concluded with the publication of The Guns at Last Light in May 2013. In 2010, he received the $100,000 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. Derived from a Kirkus review: A panoramic and affectingly realized account of the often harrowing odyssey of West Point's Class of 1966. Atkinson focuses on fewer than a dozen of the nearly 600 men who made it through the USMA to join the Army's officer corps at a time when the war in Indochina had became a bitter conflict on the home front. The author makes his subjects representative of the '66 experience. Its members were caught in a withering crossfire of social protest and upheaval that targeted their chosen profession. Bewildered, aggrieved, or just fed up, many resigned their commissions at the earliest possible moment. In uniform or out, though, members of the class endured dramatically American lives with second, third, and even fourth acts during the hard peace that followed Vietnam. Atkinson also logs the major shocks survived by the academy that molded the men of '66. A consistently absorbing narrative that effectively blends institutional and individual elements of abiding consequence. Condition: Very good / Very good.

Keywords: West Point, Military Academy, Vietnam, Douglas MacArthur, William Westmoreland, Jack Wheeler, Thomas Carhart, George Crocker, Arthur Mosley, Charlie Beckwith, Arthur Bonifas, James Ford, Matthew Harrison, John Wheeler

ISBN: 0395480086

[Book #9998]

Price: $37.50

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