Ordinary Lives

The Search for Platoon 1005 The Members of Platoon 1005 After-Action Report Note on Basic Training, Staging, and Travel Enlisted Rank Structure of the Marine Corps Major Marine Corps Bases Glossary

"Post-soldier reporter Bill Ehrhart in this searingly honest book will win your heart and mind as he chronicles without histrionics the lives of a group of ordinary Americans who did not think they were doing anything extraordinary when they risked, and often lost, their lives just because their country asked them to. After the war the survivors silently went back to work, often at low-paying, non-establishment jobs for an establishment that never even said thanks. Ehrhart, by giving 'just the facts,' says thanks admirably." --George C. Wilson, author of Mud Soldiers and Supercarrier and former military correspondent for The Washington Post "These profiles of the men of Platoon 1005 and the many paths their lives have taken since Parris Island and Vietnam are testimony to the resilience of individual personality and the quirky variety of human experiences. Bill Ehrhart, who was one of them, writes about his fellow Marines with eloquence, sympathy, and respect. Their stories make a moving and illuminating book." --Arnold R. Isaacs, author of Vietnam Shadows: The War, Its Ghosts, and Its Legacy "While the Vietnam War provides the background, it is only incidental to the story that Ehrhart wants to tell. While the search for Platoon 1005 is fascinating...the core of the book is the eighty sharply drawn vignettes of the men who made up the platoon. Ehrhart describes his subjects with delicacy and caring." --Dr. Jack Shulimson, retired United States Marine Corps historian "...engaging and appealing. ...Ordinary Lives introduces his readers to what happened to nearly all the eighty members of Ehrhart's recruit platoon during the war." --Journal of American Culture "Ehrhart has admirably restored individual selves and in the process created a moving verbal tapestry that reiterates some of the contradictions that permeated America during and after Vietnam." --American Studies