Jay Braden

Delta Dogs Jay Braden

Captain Jim Decker returns for his second tour in Vietnam. With all his engineer experience in construction units, he is surprised to be assigned to a combat engineer battalion. And surprise almost turns to shock as he learns that he will command a company detached from its battalion and under the operational control of the 122nd Separate Infantry Brigade (Airborne). Upon arriving at the brigade's basecamp, he learns that his company has been relegated to base support work such as repairing perimeter bunkers, improving the helipad, and expanding the ammunition supply point. Shortly after arrival he sees that the brigade could use his unit's support in its combat operations. But there are problems: - How can he get his noncommissioned officers' support for changing the company's operations from work in a relatively secure area where almost all of the soldiers will successfully complete their Vietnam tour, to combat engineer support in the jungle with its very real risk of injury and death? - How can he get his soldiers trained up for these jungle operations? - How will he get the brigade to ever trust his "leg" engineers to support its airborne soldiers? If this is to work at all a great number of challenges must be overcome, to include training for jungle survival, for proficiency in individual and crew-served weapons, for skills in booby trap identification and avoidance, for expertise in setting out trip flares and Claymore mines, and for constructing hasty field fortifications. However, nothing seems to work and the brigade appears determined to ignore Decker and his combat engineer company . . . until it finds itself in the fight of its life. Will Decker's efforts pay off? Maybe and maybe not. The fruition of months of hard training and the exciting ending are highlighted in the fight of Operation Valley Fury.