Memories of an Old Marine

"The first thing a battle tested Marine does, once he gets his boots on the ground, is to look at the soil and size it up. What I mean by this is; knowing you are going to be doing a lot of digging, you want to know what type of problems you are going to encounter. Is the dirt hard packed clay, or is it a soft sandy soil? Will I have to dig through rock or will there be water just below the surface? None of this was the case at Khe Sanh. This was the most screwed up dirt we had ever seen..."--Page 4 of cover.