In January 1969, one of the most promising young lieutenant colonels the U.S. Army had ever seen touched down in Vietnam for his second tour of duty, which would turn out to be his most daring and legendary. David H. Hackworth had just completed the writing of a tactical handbook for the Pentagon, and now he had been ordered to put his counterguerilla-fighting theories into action. He was given the morale-drained 4/39th -- a battalion of poorly led draftees suffering the Army's highest casualty rate and considered its worst fighting battalion. Hackworth's hard-nosed, inventive and inspired leadership quickly turned the 4/39th into Vietnam's valiant and ferocious Hardcore Recondos.

Drawing on interviews with soldiers from the Hardcore Battalion conducted over the past decade by his partner and coauthor, Eilhys England, Hackworth takes readers along on their sniper missions, ambush actions, helicopter strikes and inside the quagmire of command politics. With Steel My Soldiers' Hearts, Hackworth places the brotherhood of the 4/39th into the pantheon of our nation's most heroic warriors.

Band of Brothers
For The Vietnam Generation

Colonel David H. Hackworth, one of America's most decorated soldiers, lays bare his most daring and legendary tour of duty.

1966
With a full year of Vietnam combat and five months of intense in-country after-action analysis under his pistol belt, Hackworth pens the classic tactical handbook Vietnam Primer with military historian Samuel Marshall. In a radical shift from the World War II-era tactics then employed in Vietnam, Hackworth stresses the necessity of using disciplined, small units of well-trained men to best fight the hit-and-run warfare of the elusive Viet Cong. "Out-G-ing the G," he called his tactics.

1969
Hackworth's expertise lands him back in Vietnam. The Army's clear-put up or shut up. Given the "hopeless" 4/39th-an infantry battalion of poorly led draftees with one of the Army's worst casualty rates-Hackworth leads from up front and finds the best in every one of his grunts. Together they take a page from the VC, write their own book, and become the meanest in the Mekong Delta-the Hardcore Recondos.

2002
With the U.S. again facing elusive insurgent foes-and the hit-and-run tactics of the international terror networks we're presently up against-the 4/39 Hardcore Battalion's successes provide hard-won lessons-learned that are more applicable now than ever.

A tour de force of front-line combat action, STEEL MY SOLDIERS' HEARTS takes readers alongside sniper missions, into grunt ambush actions, above fields of fire with hard-hitting helicopter strikes, and inside the quagmire of command politics. Hackworth graduates the Mekong Delta brotherhood into the pantheon of our nation's most heroic and effective warriors.

National Bestseller