Land with No Sun: A Year in Vietnam with the 173rd Airborne

You know it’s going to be hot when your brigade is referred to as a Fireball unit. From May 1967 through May 1968, Ted Arthurs was in the thick of it, humping an eighty-pound rucksack through triple canopy jungle, chasing down the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. As sergeant major for a battalion of 800 men, it was his job to see them through this jungle hell and get them back home again.

Ted G. Arthurs was the Command Sergeant Major of the 4th Battalion, 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vietnam. He fought in the battles of Dak-to and the Tet Offensive. He lives in Destin, Florida.