Transition to Duty by Leo Flory | Books in Review

Leo Flory was drafted into the Army when he was nineteen in February of 1968. He had basic and AIT at Fort Sam Houston, then went on to serve a 1968-69 tour of duty as a combat medic in Vietnam with Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 501st Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. Flory tells his Vietnam War story in his memoir Transition to Duty: A Combat Medic’s Tour in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Screaming Eagles (The Priscilla Press, 320 pp., $19.50, paper).

“I was a country boy [from Michigan], without knowledge of the world and with only a curiosity about a far off war, ” Flory writes. “I had no thought whatsoever of the military and very little chance of ever volunteering for it. But when the call ‘came to me, ‘ I did not shirk it. I went to do my duty and joined the military service, even if in an abstract way. Then, I was sent off to war and assigned to one of the most recognized and famous units in U.S. military history.”

The author’s web site is http://www.floryenterprise.com

—Marc Leepson

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