Outskirts Press, INC.

From rural Appalachia to the impenetrable Jungles of Vietnam. From rural Appalachia to the impenetrable Jungles of Viet Nam.

Eric Howard started out life on the mean streets of the lower West Side of New York City, learning to be street smart. Then at the age of five Eric moved to rural Kentucky, high in the Appalachian Mountains. Eric lived here with his Grandparents, in a very small town, until after High School. It was the family homestead that had been settled by his ancestors over 200 years before. This was home till going to West Point and where Eric learned to be a true Southern Gentleman. After college Eric served in the U.S. Army as a member of the Special Forces (Green Beret). His first tour of combat was as an elite member of S.O.G. Military Assistance Command Vietnam / Studies and Observations Group (MACV/SOG) is a cover name to disguise the real function and name. Special Operations Group better describes it more accurately. Working closely with CIA, SOG carries out clandestine operations all over Southeast Asia. After 23 months in Vietnam Eric is badly wounded. Eric returns home to spend almost 16 months in an Army Hospital. After release from the Hospital Eric fights to remain in the U.S. Army and cover a bad case of PTSD. Eric becomes involved with a notorious out law biker gang. After much work Eric returns to active duty and the story goes on.

These men have been with me all through AIT and fifteen hard months in “The Nam.” We have cultivated guts and glory, an esprit de corps seldom rivaled. Each of us is a specialist with a primary and secondary M.O.S. that only adds to our overall proficiency. We are a TEAM in all meanings of the word. We have grown to instinctively anticipate the reflexes of one another as if they are our own. We are men who share an unspoken bond of camaraderie forged in the crucible of combat. Our camaraderie came about in the midst of mutually shared misery and uncertainty. This compelled us in some mysterious way to care for one another with such a depth of selfless love that we would have laid down our own lives for one another in a firefight or simply shared the contents of a letter or a care package from home.