Elite and highly trained, the 3d Force Recon's eight-man teams were assigned to obtain vital information about NVA operations. Alone, the men of these small teams were sent behind enemy lines, where they all knew that a single mistake could cost everyone their lives. United States Navy Hospital Corpsman Bruce Norton was the only navy corpsman to act as a Marine Force Recon Team Leader. In Force Recon Diary, 1969 Doc Norton chronicles his life, mission by mission, with the 3d Force Recon in the DMZ and the A Shau Valley. He describes the tense patrols, the supreme courage, the sacrifices—in ambushes and hot landing zones—that made this courageous company one of only two Marine units during the entire Vietnam War to receive the United States Army's Valorous Unit Citation. , true-to-life account of survival, heroism and death in the elite Marine 3d Force Recon unit, one of one two Marine units to receive the Valorous Unit Citation during the Vietnam War. Doc Norton, leader of 3d Force Recon, recounts his team's experiences behind enemy lines during the tense patrols, sudden ambushes and acts of supreme sacrifice that occurred as they gathered valuable information about NVA operations right from the source. The riveting, true-to-life account of survival, heroism and death in the elite Marine 3d Force Recon unit, one of one two Marine units to receive the Valorous Unit Citation during the Vietnam War. Doc Norton, leader of 3d Force Recon, recounts his team's experiences behind enemy lines during the tense patrols, sudden ambushes and acts of supreme sacrifice that occurred as they gathered valuable information about NVA operations right from the source. Major Bruce H. Norton, USMC (Ret.), has been a combat veteran, a career Marine infantry officer, a military museum director, and an adjunct military history professor, and is an award-winning author of numerous books on and about the United States Marines. Serving as a navy corpsman from 1967 to 1972, he participated in more than thirty long-range reconnaissance patrols from 1968 to 1970. Norton was honorably discharged from the navy in 1972, and three days later was enrolled in the Marine Platoon Leaders Class (PLC) Candidate at the College of Charleston, where he earned a BA in U.S. history in 1974. Commissioned a lieutenant of Marines upon graduation, he performed duties as an infantry platoon leader, deep reconnaissance platoon leader, rifle company commander, operations and training officer, battalion executive officer, and various joint staff positions. Following his retirement in 1992, after twenty-four years of military service, he earned a master's degree in military sciences before becoming the director of the MCRD San Diego Command Museum in California. While there, he also taught military history courses at the University of San Diego. In 1996, he received the Brigadier General Robert L. Denig Memorial Distinguished Service Award, presented to him by the United States Marine Corps' Combat Correspondents Association for his contributions as an author and Marine Corps historian. In 2005, he arrived at Quantico and wrote doctrine for the Marine Corps. THE WOODS   DEEP IN THE THOUGHTS OF NEARLY ALL YOUNG BOYS is the belief that there is something mysterious, fascinating, and powerful about owning a real gun. It makes no difference whether it is a rifle, a pistol, or a shotgun. As a youngster growing up in the 1950s in the small rural town of North Scituate, Rhode Island, I was no exception.   To possess my own rifle meant many things to me. It meant that I could be trusted, and it meant that I was expected to know the difference between what was right and what was wrong. It also meant that I would be held responsible for my actions with that rifle.   I learned that a rifle could take a life, but it could never bring a life back.   My very first rifle was given to me by my father when I was nine years old. It was a Crossman model 140-B, pneumatic, .22 caliber pellet rifle. The rifle had to be pumped up by hand at least a dozen times so that the solid lead pellet would have enough velocity behind it to make it to the target, whether that was a marked piece of paper, a squirrel high up in an oak tree, or some unsuspecting rabbit that had exposed itself in the open.   The Crossman was a single-shot rifle, and that one important characteristic would later prove to be a very useful teaching point some ten years later in Vietnam.   Looking back on those times, it seems as though I spent every idle moment in those quiet pine forests of North Scituate.   The property that surrounded our old family home on three sides was owned by the city of Providence, and all of those thousands of acres were fenced off and “posted,” to keep trespassers from ruining the land or fouling the pristine waters of the reservoir.   The entire area was made up of farmland, pine and hardwood forests, and the great body of water that was the reservoir. All of the proper