A 20-year-old Stanley Adams was drafted in 1968 and was quickly transformed into a US Army infantry rifleman. Soon, he headed for combat in Vietnam.

Adams passionately recounts his trip from a rural Midwestern town to the jungles of South East Asia. He vividly shares what it was like to fight for your country and what emotions he brought home with him afterwards. His 250-plus page memoir smacks the reader into the reality of what it is like to honor and to bury his Manchu (9th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division) brothers in arms.

The attention to detail given his deceased buddies was especially noteworthy, including pictures and sincere personal accounts made this book difficult to put down.

The writer explains the meaning of sacrifice and brotherhood to those of us who served and to civilians who may have been curious what it was like to live and fight in conditions that are unimaginable.

A reader will quickly recognize the incredible amount of work by Adams finding pictures and reliving the harrowing events to provide a first-hand account of what it took to survive combat not only physically but emotionally.

It took courage to write this book after so many years of keeping the story of Mole City inside his mind.

This book is a fascinating representation in words and pictures of a young infantryman’s battlefield experience in a   combat base camp near the Cambodian border set up to purposely bait the highly trained and well equipped North Vietnamese Army.

A respectful salute and a hearty WELL DONE  to the author,  Stan Adams.

“Mokane to Mole City,” A Manchu Vietnam Memoir, Bravo Co. Nov. 1968 – 1969

Drafted in May 1968, Stan Adams, barely 20 years old, was quickly transformed into an infantry rifleman on the front lines of the Vietnam War, where he survived a year of combat with the famed “Manchu” Regiment, 25th Infantry “Tropic Lightning” Division. Sent in as replacements for those Bravo Co. soldiers who were killed in the Thanksgiving Day Battle of 1968, Adams and his fellow soldiers were charged with building “Mole City,” a combat patrol base camp near the Cambodian Border, to purposely bait the NVA and disrupt their supply lines through the region. He had been “in country” for less than a month when the NVA attacked Mole City during a Christmas truce, just before midnight on December 22, 1968. The Manchus fought valiantly through the night as their ammo supplies dwindled, and as a last resort, artillery was called in on Mole City. In 2003, Adams began reaching out the families of fallen comrades and reconnecting with his fellow Manchus, many of whom suffer some form of PTSD as a result of the horrors they experienced in Vietnam. As these surviving warriors age, they are now burying their Manchu Brothers. 50 years later, through a photographic history featuring 250+ color pictures, Adams recounts his journey from the rural Midwestern town of Mokane, Missouri to the jungles of Vietnam, sharing what it’s like to fight – and not die – for your country.

Stan is the father of Lucky Snipe owner Kim Force. Kim worked closely with her parents to help bring her dad’s story to life. She is honored to have assisted him, and we hope you will enjoy reading this very special tribute to those who gave so much in Vietnam.

Since publication, “Mokane to Mole City” has been made into an audiobook for the Wolfner Talking Book and Braille Library, a free service available to Missourians (atwww.sos.mo.gov/wolfner). The audiobook is also part of the Library of Congress “National Library Service For the Blind and Print Disabled” (BARD) that provides braille and audiobooks for every state (www.loc.gov/nls) .The audiobook edition is dedicated to Charlie Co. Manchu John Strnad (Nauvoo, Illinois) who was blinded at the Battle of Mole City. 

AUTOGRAPHED COPIES AVAILABLE HERE. Specific wording requests may be emailed to kforce@LuckySnipe.com or noted in the comments.