Drafted The Mostly True Tales of a Rear Echelon Mother Fu**er

by Atherton, Andrew

• ISBN13: 9780989207911
• ISBN10: 0989207919
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-07-01
• Publisher: Treehouse Publishing Group

Summary

Married for several years and just shy of twenty-six, philosophy student Andrew Atherton receives his draft notice and suddenly finds himself immersed in a military culture for which he is neither well suited nor prepared. After surviving basic and advanced individual training, he is sent to Vietnam as an  infantryman. Instead of humping in the boonies with the 101st, however, he is assigned to be a clerk and ends up editing Bronze Star and Purple Heart recommendations and publishing his battalion's newspaper. And at night, he goes back to the office to type letters home to his wife and stories-both amusing and disturbing-that reflect his awakening to the heroism and horror, tedium and terror, and the incompetence and banal cruelty of life in a war zone.

Author Biography

Andrew Atherton is the pen name of a retired philosophy professor and Vietnam vet. Although he was trained as an infantryman, Atherton was instead assigned as clerk in his company's headquarters while the rest of his company ended up fighting in the infamous Hamburger Hill battle. During his off-hours, he wrote vignettes about his experiences. After battling depression upon his return, he published several of the stories in literary journals and has now combined them into one narrative.