Byron Holley spent the longest year of his young life in Vietnam as surgeon of the 4th Battalion 39th Regiment 9th Infantry Division. He lived like a swamp rat in the boonies of the Mekong Delta, and his actions were sometimes all that made the difference between life and death. Holley never got used to death, to seeing men he knew go home in body bags. Serving under Col. David H. Hackworth, Holley saw the outfit begin to act more like an elite bunch of Rangers than the rag tag, half drunk group it had been. He watched Hackworth turn the 4/39 into the fighting and feared Hardcore Recondo battalion.
