About the Author

Don Bodey was a draftee mortarman in Vietnam. The idea, outpouring, for F.N.G. took root when he was washing dishes in a restaurant in Florida. Then, he earned a MFA in the writing program at University of Oregon. For the next few years he built houses in Oregon, taught university classes and bought a bar in Chicago. He now works as a carpenter in his native Indiana, where he lives, near his wife and son. Interviews and podcasts with the author can be found on www.DonBodey.com

Reviews

"Vietnam veteran Donald Bodey captures the fears and ap-prehensions of every infantryman... if you like adventure, a true picture of combat and the chance to look into the combat veter-an's mind, F.N.G. is your kind of book."
--Mike Mooney, Stars & Stripes Korea Bureau Chief"F.N.G. makes me glad I wasn't a grunt. Bodey's unsparing eye illuminates detail after detail of the precarious life they led. Dirt, smells, sounds, fears, sudden death, friendship, drugs, bugs, each incident etches itself vividly in the reader's con-sciousness."
--Bob Mason, author of Chickenhawk "When I first read a draft F.N.G. in 1980, it rang true and it's still on target for the thousands I have worked with over the last 28 years. It still rings true today with each new wave of combat veterans, wherever they are returning from. The bottom line is that war still sucks and the damage seems unending if one fol-lows the ripples to where they ultimately arrive."
--Rick Ritter, MSW, Ed. of. Made in America, Sold in the Nam "A vivid, frequently moving book that takes the reader on a trip into the reality of war. The reader suffers with these men, and sometimes even smiles at their antics as they slog through the jungles. This is a hard book to forget."
--James Hill, Rocky Mountain News "Bodey brings back alive the particular horrors of that par-ticular war so well that we participate in it with frightening directness. His prose is exacting, his rendering of evocative de-tails thoroughly accomplished, and the pacing absolutely absorbing."
--Barry Silesky, Chicago Magazine"Bodey writes in an extremely realistic vein...that gives F.N.G. authenticity and strength. All in all, a moving book, both an ex-ercise in memory, and a bittersweet exorcism."
--Kirkus Previews"A documentary-style, first-person account of one soldier's year in the mud-soaked dugouts near the Cambodian border... reading the book is as close as any of us would want to get to the experience."
--Robert Merritt, Richmond Times"Bodey's first novel captures the reader. All Quiet on the Western Front drives its readers to the front of World War I. F.N.G. helicopters its readers to a new front: Vietnam."
--Robert E. Shimokoski, Jr., Bestsellers "Raw, profane...a candidly moving portrayal of the average American soldier in Vietnam, who often found courage when he did not seek it--but little of anything else."
--Chicago Sun-Times"The day-to-day grind, beautifully and touchingly rendered by...a Vietnam veteran, is told with an unrelenting accumulation of detail. His characters are flesh and blood."
--Charles Salzberg, The New York Times Book Review "Bodey packs considerable emotional freight...into a style that remains deliberately supple, cool, and declarative...An impressive novel."
--The Cleveland Plain Dealer "The publication of this work conveys this importance this author places on accurately portraying the war through the eyes of an infantryman."
--Illinois Daily Herald