One Day as a Lion - True Stories of the Vietnam War: Heroes of Collin County, Texas (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798647507280)

"One Day As A Lion" Is a work written by a McKinney, Texas, resident about local boys. But these subjects of the book form part of a tragic sphere. The 21 subjects, who each command a chapter, were all young men from Collin County who died serving their country in the Vietnam War. That was the hook for me. The truth is, I cracked open this book knowing little about the war. Perhaps this is an indictment of our education system, but I had never studied the Vietnam War, not in high school, not in college. We spent weeks learning about England in the 1500s, but not a single minute about one of the most tumultuous periods in this nation's history. So it was that I had a deeper mission in mind than just finding out about local heroes when I opened "One Day As A Lion." Foster snagged me in the first chapter. Ronnie Foster served in Vietnam, and it's obvious early on that there was a greater sense of purpose guiding his fingers across the keyboard in the creation of this work. A former Marine, Foster knows what he's talking about, and it's that inside knowledge that really helps move this book along. When Foster talks about life in the rice paddies, it's obvious he knows what he's talking about. But the Collin County men who lost their lives in country are at the heart of "One Day As A Lion." Young men like Royce Glenn Scoggins and Charles W. "Bill" Bryan left their homes and family in McKinney to willingly serve their country and never came home. Foster's purpose in allowing us to get to know these young men is to bring the war home and make it more real. "One Day As A Lion" is an unflinching look at war. It gets up close and personal and pulls no punches. If you're looking for a candy-coated collection of obituaries, look elsewhere. Nearly every chapter deals with the life and death of local soldiers. Their time in Vietnam is chronicled, as is the way each of them died. At times, the book is a hard read simply because the reader gets to know these young men as more than names at the beginning of a chapter, yet their fate is already cast. "One Day As A Lion" is an emotional roller coaster, but it is a must-read for anyone wanting to know more about what happened half a world away some 35 years ago. Well-written and factual without being overly so, "One Day As A Lion" is an entertaining and intriguing read. Oh, and what of the title? It comes from an old Tibetan proverb: "It is better to have lived one day as a lion than to live ten thousand years as a sheep." Fitting.

Author: Ronnie D. Foster
ISBN-10: 8647507282
ISBN-13: 9798647507280
Publisher: Independently Published
Language: English
Published: 06/10/2020
Pages: 326
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.96lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.68d