Hi HH,
i have both the books you mentioned by title and agree with your recommendation.
I was 19 years old in May of 1967 when I was called up for the draft. By some mysterious sort of divine intervention, I was rejected on health grounds (severe hypertension). Had I not been rejected, there was probably a 50/50 chance I would have arrived in VN right around the start of the Tet Offensive – a bad situation for any FNG. After dodging a bullet like that, I got interested in finding out what I had missed, so I started reading up on the war. That was about 55 years and a couple of hundred books and manuals ago.
Interestingly, there seems to have been a resurgent wave of VN memoirs and battle accounts coming out over the past 5-10 years.
Here are three books that I found worthwhile:
"BAIT – The Battle of Kham Duc"
by James D McEleroy & Gregory W Sanders
First published in 2019
"Abandoned in Hell – The Fight for Vietnam's Firebase Kate"
by William Albracht & Marvin J Wolf
First published in 2015
"Firebase Illingsworth – An Epic True Story of Remarkable Courage Against Staggering Odds"
by Philip Keith (author of "Blackhorse Riders")
First published 2013
Maybe you already know of them …..
Meanwhile, I did a quick Google check on the M16:
> Introduced in VN in 1965.
> Officially replaced the M14 in 1969.
FWIW
B