Frederick Downs The Killing Zone

My book is “The Killing Zone” by Frederick Downs Jr. The book is a memoir of the experiences of Second Lieutenant Frederick Downs Jr. and his experiences in the Vietnam War. The main purpose of Downs writing this is that he wanted to highlight and show his own experiences and hardships that he had to face during the Vietnam war and just how harsh some of the conditions were that he had to endure with his fellow Americans. I chose this book because I wanted to learn more about what exactly the experiences were like during the Vietnam War, due to myself not really knowing much about it to begin with. Fredrick Downs Jr. is a former army infantry lieutenant who went through extreme hardships and tribulations during his time in Vietnam. He has received

Downs talks about just how many people ended up dying that we watched, which most definitely was horrible to read about, let alone experience. In addition to backing this up, Downs had to go through multiple tunnels and bunkers that were heavily booby trapped. Downs unfortunately stepped on a “Bouncing Betty” landmine, which caused him serious damage and pain. He ended up losing all of his left arm, but miraculously he was able to stay alive and be saved. During his mission in Tam Ky, Downs and his platoon were under constant life threatening situations, solidifying just how scary and horrible this war was. Given this was a personal memoir, Downs was incredibly biased when writing it, due to the fact that he was an American Lieutenant, and heavily disliked any communism in the world, which was what North Vietnam was at this time. Overall, I definitely recommend this book to everyone to read. This book opened my eyes to seeing just how gruesome the fighting conditions were in Vietnam for the troops, along with giving background on how difficult the entire war was for the