According to the book description of Uniforms, it "spans an era in
a boys life that tells about his experiences growing up in a small New England
town, from his childhood years, attending parochial school, to his adolescent
years, continuing parochial school and becoming an active member of a drum and
bugle corps for ten years. The story continues into early adulthood when he
enlisted into the United States Marine Corps, through boot camp, and then
serving two tours of duty, 1969 through 1970, in Vietnam. It is a factual
description of his life as he grew up and through his experiences of wearing
many uniforms, which shaped his life and future forever. The language used in
this book is sometimes graphic, with four-letter expressions. However, it is the
exact language that was so commonly used during that era.
The author does his best at explaining what it was like to grow up in the late
1950s and the 1960s, attending school taught only by nuns. Then while still
attending school, joining a drum and bugle corps and all his experiences
traveling around New England and Canada, performing in parades and field
competitions. At eighteen years old, he enlisted into the Armed Forces, United
States Marine Corps, and explains what life was like at eighteen years old in
1968 to go through boot camp at Parris Island in South Carolina. As his marine
infantry training continued, the author describes, in detail and in his own
words, what it was like as the Marine Corps prepared him and many others like
him for combat in Vietnam. The author then describes, to the best of his
recollection and ability, what life was like in Vietnam in 1969 while he was
attached to a marine combat unit in Quang Tri Province of Southern Vietnam. The
book goes on to describe how, at the end of 1969, he was redeployed to another
combat unit south of Da Nang. The author stayed in Vietnam until mid-August of
1970 and then was released from active duty and returned home at the age of
twenty-one. This book speaks from the heart and mind of everyone who has ever
had the experience of attending a Catholic school with nuns, all those who were
ever so fortunate to be a member of a drum and bugle corps, and all those combat
veterans who served in Vietnam and experienced the rigors and sorrows of that
war."
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