This is a story about Staff Sergeant Ed Keith, a man who from first appearance would be the last man that you would want beside you in battle. He was an extremely slim, dark-haired youth man with glasses as thick as Coke bottle bottoms and he wore Special Forces “tiger suit” fatigues. But upon further review of his person, you would see that he was with special forces Green Berets, and he had the old man’s permission to fly with the helicopter crews like C Troop, 2nd of 17th Calvary, 101st Airborne Division. At least that is what they were told.
He was an anomaly in a war full of unexplainable occurrences. He had come to Vietnam by way of the Intelligence Corps and when He found out he was especially good at spotting enemy emplacements from 3-5000 feet in the air he linked up with a master Sergeant that loaded him up in a helo and allowed him to save hundreds of lives…all of this just “outside” the chain of command. He saw this as a calling and a gift to the war. He did this for over a year until he was shot up himself. The story is told by the author with great detail along with his recovery.
The author is known for his accuracy in writing. Michael Putzel is a distinguished American journalist who covered the war in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos for two-and-a-half years as a war correspondent for The Associated Press. From the Civil Rights Movement and the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard Nixon, to the White House under Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton and the collapse of Soviet Communism from Moscow, he reported many of the biggest news stories of his generation. He witnessed the shooting of President Reagan, served as Washington bureau chief of The Boston Globe, and wrote a widely published weekly column on how technology has changed people’s lives.
His first book, The Price They Paid: Enduring Wounds of War, was published in 2015. Rogue Soldier: One Man’s War was published in 2021. But later when the war was over, some of his comrades in the 101st sought a silver medal for his actions, and he was denied over and over again. Years later, even after some of the guys who had been pushing for the Star were dead themselves, the author put in a request for its status and was told by the staff of Congressman Kevin McCarthy’s concerning the effort to get Keith the Silver Star, said she couldn’t discuss the case due to the Privacy Act, but she confirmed that the matter “is not still active.” Staff Sergeant Keith never got the Silver Star. Yet another casualty of a war everyone wants to forget. Great story… a reminder of the cost of so many.
