Ed Gaydos's Blog, page 23
May 24, 2013
Memorial Day Weekend Kindle Sale – Save 40%!
This weekend only, save 40% on the Kindle book of Seven in a Jeep. Get the Kindle book here.
Seven in a Jeep has been listed in the top 100 Kindle books about Vietnam since the day it was released. The book is a celebration of the real soldiers of the U.S. military, and a perfect fit for Memorial Day reading.
Order your copy today and support a veteran, support a great author, and support independent publishing.
Amazon is also offering the paperback for only $13.75.
Photo by Ed Gaydos, 1971, author of Seven in a Jeep.
Praise from Columbus Dispatch Editor Mike Curtin
Retired editor of The Columbus Dispatch and current Ohio state representative Mike Curtin sent us some wonderful praise of Seven in a Jeep.
“Ed Gaydos has a razor wit, a radar for the absurd and a scholar’s precision. Seven in a Jeep, his Vietnam memoir, is the work of a gifted storyteller.” – Mike Curtin, retired editor, The Columbus Dispatch
Thank you, Mr. Curtin, for your kind words!
May 23, 2013
Kind Words From OSU Adjunct Professor Bill Shkurti
Seven In A Jeep has received more welcome praise.
“Written with clarity, insight and a wonderful sense of irony… This book is both an informative and entertaining read.” – William J. Shkurti, author of Soldiering on in a Dying War
Bill is adjunct professor of public policy at the John Glenn Institute of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University. His book can be found on Amazon.
May 22, 2013
Kind Words From New York Times Best-Selling Author Rusty McClure
New York Times Best-Selling Author Rusty McClure had some really nice things to say about Seven In A Jeep recently:
“Ed Gaydos brings to life the guys at the listening end of Adrian Cronauer’s Good Morning Vietnam radio shows – authentically – because he was there. A tough time in America and a tougher time for the guys who shipped out is pictured here, richly and with heart.”
Much appreciated, sir! Rusty’s books, including Crosley: Two Brothers and a Business Empire That Transformed the Nation, can be found here:
May 15, 2013
Seven in a Jeep Now Available!
Seven in a Jeep: A Memoir of the Vietnam War
is now available!
The paperback is available from Amazon.com (click) and BarnesandNoble.com (click), and available by request at all brick and mortar bookstores.
Find the e-book on Amazon Kindle (click). More e-book markets coming soon!
After you pick up a copy, don’t forget to leave a review at GoodReads.com!
Congratulations to Ed Gaydos! You’ve written a fantastic memoir, and now the world will have a chance to read it.
May 14, 2013
Best-Selling Author Robert Flanagan’s Review of Seven in a Jeep
Robert Flanagan is the best-selling author of Maggot, the critically-acclaimed book of Parris Island, location of Marine Corps. boot camp, in the era of the Vietnam War. Robert Flanagan is also an award-winning poet and short story writer.
Ed Gaydos would like to thank Robert for providing the following review of his new book, Seven in a Jeep (Columbus Press).
—-
In his Vietnam War memoir Seven in a Jeep, (2013, Columbus Press, Columbus, Ohio) Ed Gaydos presents a candid self portrait of a confused, frightened, but dutiful young American soldier in Vietnam 1970. In doing so he captures the essence of his eleven month tour of duty in a world of “concertina wire, machine guns, work details, latrines, prostitutes and the aftermath of enemy attacks.”
Gaydos, who had studied to become a Catholic priest, ended up at an artillery base in central Vietnam firing mortar rounds at a generally unseen enemy. There, he discovered the brutal truth that a reluctant combatant can be transformed by combat to a willing killer. In Gaydos’s case he stepped out of his hooch one morning and heard the “sharp, popping sound…of an AK47, the automatic rifle used by the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong, “felt a wave of nausea,” and realized that “someone was out to take my life. In that defining instant my whole world changed; I changed. I forgot the values of my upbringing about the sanctity of life. I overthrew years of priestly formation aimed at helping other people. In a blink I was ready to kill. Before he killed me. It was oh-so easy; no more bother than putting on a different hat.”
Even so. his narrative does not lack the soldier’s typical black humor. The book’s title, Seven in a Jeep, for instance, has nothing to do with a life or death moment of attacking or fleeing the enemy, but rather to troopers rushing from a whorehouse to escape a surprise visit to the forbidden site by their punitive commanding officer.
That the core story in Seven in a Jeep has been told and retold in fiction, history and memoir from Homer’s Iliad and the Old Testament’s Book of Joshua through the American War of Independence, Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq does not lessen its impact: rather it corroborates the truth of its message. War can do great damage, physical, moral and psychological to the individual combatant. Each dog face, jarhead, flyboy, or swabby has to witness on his or her own the boredom of duty, idiocy of command, terror of combat, and murderous rage brought on by fear. Just as each age needs to discover for itself the cruelty of combat, the frequent idiocy of command, and the blood brother relationship of squad and platoon members.
Most every soldier’s war could be summarized as succinctly as Gaydos does regarding his experience. “We fought, and some of us died, out of devotion to fellow soldiers. Not for some larger sustaining cause.”
