A Hundred Miles of Bad Road

Reviewed by Michael Peck
The Military Book Review

As American soldiers risk their lives patrolling the roads of Iraq, it's worth remembering that 40 years ago U.S. troops also had to contend with ambushes and booby traps along the roads of South Vietnam. A Hundred Miles of Bad Road isn't just one of the better Vietnam memoirs, it's also a graphic account of fighting in a guerrilla war against a foe who could strike at any place at any time.

Birdwell is an unlikely chronicler. A Cherokee Indian who grew up dirt-poor in Oklahoma, he wasn't expected to go anywhere or become anyone. So he joined the Army and was sent to Vietnam and the 3rd Squadron of the 4th Armored Cavalry Regiment (equipped with M48 tanks and M113 armored personnel carriers instead of horses).

Birdwell arrived in time for the Tet Offensive in January 1968, when his cavalry troop was shot to pieces in an ambush. What followed was a year of convoy escorts and ambushes that brought him two Silver Stars, three wounds, and the loss of friends and leaders.

Vietnam was jungle instead of desert. The enemy looked and dressed differently than in Iraq. But Birdwell's experiences would seem familiar to a convoy in the Sunni Triangle — roads that had to be constantly swept for mines, sudden attacks by an enemy that melted away into the civilian population and the physical exhaustion of keeping armored vehicles going in a harsh climate.

Yet Birdwell's army of 1968 feels very distant, like reading about Napoleon's soldiers or those who fought at Gettysburg. Compared to today's highly trained and motivated volunteer force, Birdwell served in a conscript army where discipline faltered and drug abuse became rife (Birdwell describes how his unit practically disintegrated as the best leaders were lost).

The soldiers stripped to the waist in the jungle heat — when was the last time you saw a photo of a bare-chested soldier in Iraq? It was a different army in a different time and a different place.

Vietnam books don't tend to have happy endings (perhaps no war book should). But for all his physical and psychic scars, at least Birdwell managed to salvage his life. He became an attorney and chief justice of the Cherokee Nation Judicial Appeal Court.