Rotations

Almost fifty years ago Richard Nixon was elected with a “secret plan” to end the Vietnam War. My sixty-two--thousand- word novel, Rotations, follows a group of Americans thrust into this war in 1969 in the giant base at Long Binh. The characters, continuously rotate into and out of the unit as they attempt to deny the reality of the war by creating a comfortable American enclave. The characters include Adam Nussbaum, a recent NYU graduate and truth-seeker who suffers under a rigid and aggressive officer. He then falls into a romantic relationship with Katie Dolan, an RN at the military hospital where he interrogates North Vietnamese military prisoners. Adam is commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Robert “Bull” Basham, who attempts to run a Christmas tree farm in New Hampshire from Vietnam only to find himself dangerously drawn into the currency black market. Major Ang Dung commands an enigmatic ARVN intelligence unit under the policy of Vietnamization, and becomes an important and mysterious character in the story. Lieutenant Mike Dempsey, a recent West Point graduate commands an infantry platoon next to the intelligence unit., which slowly draws Adam into its operations . Although initially isolated from combat and attempting to create a “safe zone” in Vietnam, everyone in the detachment is gradually drawn into the real war, leading to a dramatic and violent conclusion.My personal experiences inspired this novel. I graduated from West Point in 1966, was in Vietnam in 1969 in an intelligence unit, graduated from Emory Medical School in 1974 and spent the last forty years as a medical oncologist.