WHERE WE WERE In Vietnam

A Comprehensive Guide to the Firebases, Military Installations and Naval Vessels of the Vietnam War - 1945-1975

reviews:

Michael P. Kelley's Where We Were (Hellgate, 850pp., $39.95) lives up in spades to its subtitle: A Comprehensive Guide to the Firebases, Military Installations, and Naval Vessels of the Vietnam War, 1945-75. Kelley, a former 101st Airborne machine gunner, has worked seven long and hard years to produce his magnum opus. The result: a remarkable book that will take its place among the indispensible reference works of the Vietnam War.

Chances are, if you served in Vietnam, you will find where you were in the amazingly detailed book. Kelley has compiled more than 10,000 entries covering the entire scope of the American in Indochina. He's uncovered more than 6,000 firebases and LZs, some 2,000 airfields, and more than 700 warships. He includes tons of facts and details about many of the places, inclulding grid coordinates, the dates they were built and put into operation, and the main units that occupied them.

Kelley, an accomplished artist and writer, also includes much helpful information in his in-depth appendices. That includes a primer on how to research the war and how to gain access to military personnel records. His also includes a glossary, abbreviatiions, acronyms, and minutiae appendix that alone is worth the price of admission.

Used with the Permission of VVA VETERAN Magazine and author Marc Leepson

More than a prodigious feat of research, Mike Kelley's labor of love will be an invaluable resource--for scholars, for historians, and for the rest of us who want to know more about Where We Were.

Bernard Edelman, editor of Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam, and Centenarians: The Story of the 20th Century by the Americans Who Lived It

Mike Kelley has done everyone who served in Vietnam a great service with his monumental research for WHERE WE WERE. Veterans and military historians alike will benefit from his Herculean efforts to nail down precisely WHERE everything was and WHERE everything happened in America's long war in Vietnam. If you can't find it in these pages, it can't be found.

Joseph L. Galloway, co-author: We Were Soldiers Once and Young Triumph Without Victory: The History of the Persian Gulf War

"Machine-gun" Kelley has fired a long and effective burst in his brilliant work WHERE WE WERE that's a detailed handy-dandy guide for those of us who vacationed in South East Asia in the 60's and 70's. Kelley's book is also an important tool for Vietnam vets (especially if they revisit that beautiful land) their families and military historians. It's an incredible resource and will sit prominently among my research materials on the Vietnam War.

David Hackworth, author of Vietnam Primer, About Face and Steel My Soldiers' Hearts

Mike Kelley's stupendous labor of love has brought us an important and useful guide for Vietnam veterans and historians alike--a launching point for historical inquiry and return trips to Vietnam, and a guidepost veterans can use to find out "Where We Were in Vietnam." If you need a fact about the Vietnam War, look here first.

Eric Hammel, Author of Khe Sanh: Siege in the Clouds, Fire in the Streets: The Battle for Hue Tet 1968, Ambush Valley: I Corps, Vietnam, Co-author Lima-6: A Marine Company Commander in Vietnam, etc.

In the metaphorical sense, Americans may still be unsure "where we were" in Vietnam. In the geographical sense, though, Mike Kelley's remarkable work will help veterans and any others who want to know exactly where US forces were situated in that beautiful and troubled land. Kelley's astonishing and prodigious research literally puts America's Vietnam experience on the map.

Arnold R. Isaacs, author of Vietnam Shadows: The War, Its Ghosts, and Its Legacy, etc.

I am in awe of what Michael Kelley has produced in this amazing book. His massive and inclusive compilation of firebases and other military installations will instantly become a classic reference work of the Vietnam War.

Marc Leepson, Arts Editor of the VVA Veteran; author of Saving Monticello

WHERE WE WERE is a magnificently-researched book, an exhaustive listing of virtually all the landing zones, firebases, and other military installations of the Vietnam War. Beyond compiling such a list, an achievement in itself, the author also provides exact grid coordinates for each position (maps are included) along with some colorful background information about the history of these positions. As such, WHERE WE WERE is a major step up from the average dry-as-dust reference book. As Stanton's ORDER OF BATTLE outlines which units were in Vietnam, WHERE WE WERE pinpoints exactly where those units lived and fought and died. WHERE WE WERE belongs in the reference room of every library in the country, and on the bookshelf of anyone wishing to study the US ground war in Vietnam.

Keith W. Nolan, author of Ripcord, Sappers In The Wire, Operation Buffalo, The Battle For Saigon, and etc.

Michael Kelley's WHERE WE WERE in Vietnam is an indispensable reference work for all students of the Vietnam War. The attention to detail in this volume is astonishing. Its subtitle describes it as a "Comprehensive guide to the firebases, military installations and naval vessels of the Vietnam War" and, if anything, this claim still does not do justice to Kelley's accomplishment here. He not only tells you where bases, airfields, and vessels were, but he also shows you how to find these locations on military maps and then tells you where to find the maps. Additionally, the numerous appendices are full of essential information for the serious student of the war: statistics on casualties; information on how to obtain US Military personnel records; an outstanding glossary of terms, acronyms, and abbreviations; and lists of recommended reading and recommended Internet resources. If you were going to invest in just one reference book on the Vietnam War, this would be the one.

Dr. Eric Schroeder, author of Vietnam, We've all Been There