By Lt. Col. John C. Hedley (Ret), USMA ’68.
Virginia Beach: Koelher Books, 2022.
SBN 978-1-64663-655-6. Photographs.
References.
Pp. 358. $21.95.
Lieutenant Colonel John C. Hedley’s From the Shadows tells the story of the twenty U.S. Military Academy (USMA) graduates from the Class of 1968 who lost their lives during the Vietnam War and serves as a tribute to those twenty young men, many of whom Hedley knew personally. Readers of Hedley’s work will likely make comparisons to Rick Atkinson’s acclaimed 1989 book, The Long Gray Line, that examined West Point’s Class of 1966, which lost thirty of its members in Southeast Asia, the most of any USMA class. Despite the similarities in the subject matter, Hedley, as a fellow Class of 1968 graduate, provides firsthand knowledge of the West Point experience and Army service that Atkinson could not.
Hedley begins his book with a description of the cadet experience at West Point, including the hardships of Beast Barracks, hazing by upperclassmen, rigorous academic curriculum, and military training; to more light-hearted moments, to include dances, attending the annual Army-Navy game, pranks, and other activities. This is then followed by branch selection in January 1968, the class’s graduation on 5 June, assignment to branch schools, first assignments as officers, and, for many, service in Vietnam. Hedley, who selected Infantry as his branch, intersperses his narrative here with General Douglas MacArthur’s 1962 farewell speech to the Corps of Cadets and a summary of the Vietnam War, to include the French experience through 1954 and the earlier years of U.S. involvement.
The heart of the book then follows—the discussion of the twenty members of the Class of 1968 who made the ultimate sacrifice on the battlefields of Vietnam. Beginning with First Lieutenant Donald F. Van Cook, Jr., killed in a 4 June 1969 rocket attack on his firebase, to Captain Henry Spengler, who perished when his AH-1G Cobra attack helicopter was shot down on 5 April 1972 during the North Vietnamese Army’s Easter Offensive, Hedley highlights the lives and legacies of these twenty young men who represented the cream of the Army’s junior officer corps and embodied the West Point motto of Duty, Honor, Country.
Hedley was greatly assisted by fellow classmates as well as family members, including soldiers’ widows, who provided anecdotes of those lost. In some cases, these fellow officers were in Vietnam when their classmate died and were asked to escort their remains back to the States to their families for funerals and burials, many of which took place at West Point.
Hedley concludes his book by discussing class reunions and how, since Vietnam, the Class of 1968 has continued to lose members who served in Southeast Asia, largely from the effects of Agent Orange. He also discusses Post Traumatic Stress (he refuses to call it a disorder) among Vietnam veterans and provides a brief history of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.
From the Shadows includes dozens of photographs, including cadet yearbook portraits, service photographs, and candid family shots. Hedley also provides a list of dates of each death in chronological order and where each soldier’s name is listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, along with the medals awarded to those killed. Some better editing would eliminate the significant number of typos and incorrect word usage (ordinance for ordnance, for example), but these are minor criticisms in what is an otherwise well-written and moving book about service and sacrifice during the Vietnam War era, and the brotherhood of a West Point class.
Matthew J. Seelinger
Arlington, Virginia
