A Vietnam War Novel - Part 4

I was going to make this novel authentic. I had been there, I had been in battle, I had called in close air support and medevacs,I had called in artillery and adjusted fire. The radio communications were going to just as I remember them. This book was going to be real in the technical details. The first little hiccup came with team suffixes. Every team member had a number as a radio call-sign suffix. If you were the junior, like the junior medic, you had an alpha added to the number. No one, and I sent emails to many old SF guys, including every Commo Sergeant I knew, and no could recall more than a few of the suffixes. Well, so much for that. I made up most of them. Everyone in SF knew and used the Vietnamese rank system. I did the research on the North Vietnamese Army and their rank system was almost the same. There were a couple differences in the NCO ranks. I used the Vietnamese ranks throughout the book. When the Russians were dealing with the Vietnamese, I called them by the VN rank. The only Russian word I used was Spetsnaz, the name of the Soviet Special Forces. That was critical for the story. I researched everything. I had the weaponry right, learned NVA tactics and their Order of Battle, learned their Table of Organization, used maps of Cambodia for the NVA base camps and the road system. I thought I did a good job on the military aspects. Now, war is not all seriousness, occasionallly there is time to play. Phnom Penh, Cambodia, is not unlike any other large city. When the Russians went whoring, I needed to know what the boys were paying. There was an SF contingent in Phnom Penh in the early 70s. I figured my brothers would know about that stuff. I was one of the brothers, I know what we did when given the opporturnity. Well, once again, foggy old memories failed. The price is pretty vague in the book. Finally, the book was finished. Although it only took me about an hour to write these first four blogs about this book, it took a year to write it. But, it was done, time to find a publisher.