A Struggle for Survival

Jack Wagner is a 17-year-old Texas boy who wants to join the Marines. He is from a Marine family. His grandfather, uncle and father were all highly-decorated Marines, who fought in World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam. When his father was killed in Vietnam, Jack resolves to become a Marine himself, needing to understand what his father had thought and experienced and to complete the work that he started before his death in the Central Highlands. This remarkable story follows the careers of three generations of the Wagner family, from Belleau Woods, to Iwo Jima, to the landing at Incheon to the brutal battles in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Young Jack Wagner not only adds to the military accomplishments of the Marines in his family; he exceeds them all.