It took heroes: A chaplain's tribute to Vietnam veterans and those who waited

by Claude D. Newby

Book Overview

This is the true life adventure of a Chaplain during infantry combat in Vietnam. Here he recalls the heroes and the wounded that came through his life. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1555173926
• ISBN13: 9781555173920
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Bonneville Books
• Length: 231 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.

Customer Reviews

From The Heart

I have taken several months to finally finish It Took Heroes. I was a young man during Vietnam and although I didn't serve in the war the memories of fresh faced boys, my brothers barely able to shave going off to the war, the dying, the sense of the surreal as at home we surfed and went to Disneyland during this time of sex, drugs, rock and roll -- all of it came to the surface, and I hurt again. I could only read a few pages at a time as I was taken to the time a place through the skillful memoir of Chaplain Newby. I saw the faces of the soldiers through Chaplain Newby's eyes, and I saw the heart of a man torn between duty to family and duty to men who a country asked to fight and die in an unwinable and ill-defined cause. Newby went to the war not once, but twice, and didn't have to go daily to the front lines where the fighting and dying was happening, but did. He evokes a sense of reverence for men, though not perfect, who did a dirty job and through it all did it just to get home, just to save a comrade, just because they had to. Newby is on a mission here to do justice to the memory of the dead and living who were boys once in a land far from "the world" and whose innocence was taken from them in a brutal conflict that still haunts us today. The Chaplain's point of view is what makes great movie stuff.

Well done, Padre!

Nice job. Brings back a lot of memories ... names, faces and places. You forgot noone when you were with us (A/2/8 Cav). You reached out to everyone. Both books tell the real story of how we survived.

It took Heroes

This book will be studied a hundred years from now as the only one of its kind: A day by day vivid accounting of an Army Chaplain's life with infantry soldiers in almost constant combat in Viet Nam. Newby is only the 2d Chaplain in history to be awarded the Combat Infantryman's Badge. All soldiers, especially those who served in the First Cavalry Division in Vietnam, must read this stunning work.

Super Book

I have read this book and the sequel. If I could read only one Vietnam book, this is it. Richly detailed and faces and names and experiences permeate every page. Few people have any real concept of what chaplains do in combat or the fact that chaplains even exist. In Vietnam as related by the author, the Chaplain was ubiquitous. And, the soldiers who experienced his presence saw the face of God. Read this book and give it to your loved ones and friends. Sit it on your coffee table and leaf through it with much regularity. Thanks to Chaplain Newby for his great efforts. He truly is himself a hero.

It Took Heroes

This was a terrific book about a combat chaplins experience in Viet Nam. This was the best book I've read about Viet Nam. As a Viet Nam vet and a fellow "Cavalryman" I have found a book that told it as it was. I'm looking forward to his next book.