Blood Trails - Christopher Ronnau

For Private First Class Ronnau Vietnam was 'better than a poke in the face with a sharp stick'. Believing Eisenhower's domino theory, he volunteered for the Army and off to Vietnam he went, armed with an M-14 rifle and American Express travellers cheques. And it only took a matter of a few days from his landing at Saigon to finding himself in a modern day Picket's Charge.
'Every gun out there was on rock and roll. Tracers from both sides flew in all directions. The air around us was supersaturated with burnt gun powder and appeared slightly gray. It was unreal. Each of us was playing Russian roulette and we knew it. The guy to my immediate right let out a groan and fell over after being shot in the belly. A few steps later Sergeant Condor yelped out loud like a swatted puppy as a bullet went in the front of his shirt and out the back. He stumbled forward for a step or two before crashing into the ground on his face. Soon he was back up on his feet again, moving forward and shooting right along with the rest of us. This was absolutely the wildest and most crazy thing that I had ever done in my life.'
Ronnau remained unscathed for seven months until a bullet found his jaw and he was sent home. After a medical discharge for wounds received in Vietnam, and a lengthy recuperation at Letterman Army Hospital in San Francisco, Chris returned to Southern California. After college and medical school he worked as an emergency room physician and director in St. Louis, Missouri for over twenty years. He is divorced with three children. In 2002 he returned to Long Beach where he now lives and writes.