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Paco's Story

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Paco Sullivan is the only man in Alpha Company to survive a cataclysmic Vietcong attack on Fire Base Harriette in Vietnam. Everyone else is annihilated.

When a medic finally rescues him almost two days later, Paco is waiting to die, flies and maggots covering his burnt, shattered body. He winds up back in the United States with his legs full of pins, daily rations of Librium and Valium, and no sense of what to do next.

One evening, on the tail of a rainstorm, he limps off a bus and into the small town of Boone, determined to find a real job and a real bed, but no matter how hard he works, nothing muffles the anguish in his mind and body.

Brilliantly and vividly written, Paco's Story plunges the reader into the violence and casual cruelty of the Vietnam War and the ghostly aftermath that often dealt the harshest blows.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      December 1, 1986
      When incoming fire lights up the sky over the good old boys at Fire Base Harriet in Vietnam, the tough soldiers just look at each other and settle in, certain that the nearly 100 of them will die. And all but one are visited by the descending brightness that tears their bodies apart. The ghost of one of these soldiers narrates the story of survivor Paco Sullivan, who lies covered with flies and dirt for two days before being rescued. Badly scarred and limping, he returns to the States and becomes an introspective dishwasher in a small Texas town. This is a well-written, ruminative work in an easy-going, down-home dialect that makes the awful memories of the warthankfullya little bit distant. Heinemann

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Text Difficulty:9-12

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