Marine Corps Tanks and Ontos in Vietnam

About the Book

Book 3, the last of a three-book series, continues from 1968 in book 2 to cover the action of Marine Corps Tankers and Ontos crewmen fighting the locally grown Viet Cong; the better armed, trained, organized, and equipped Viet Cong main forces; and the North Vietnamese Army regulars from 1969 through 1970+ in I Corps, South Vietnam. As in books 1 and 2 and continuing in book 3, it features hundreds of personal stories and on-the-spot, real-time interviews of Marines just returning from their fight, all of which are framed within the official unit command chronologies and after-action reports, including documented “lessons learned.” The maps, personal pictures, organizational charts, and the citing of each Marine who gave his life are also linked to the Vietnam Wall and to the Foundation’s website, with volumes of additional information about the Marines and Ontos crewmen who left their sweat and blood in Vietnam, battling their Communist enemy.

About the Author

Lieutenant Colonel Ray Stewart, USMC (Ret.), enlisted in 1955. He graduated from University of Idaho. He was commissioned as second lieutenant in 1964 and served two tours in Vietnam as a Tanker (1st and 3d Tanks), a Grunt (2/4), and the OpsO (S-3) of the Da Nang Defense Battalion. He was the CO of H&S Company, 2d Radio Battalion with a tour in Morocco. He was an instructor at Amphibious Warfare School (AWS). He served with the Jordan Arab Army in M48A3 tanks and later the PlnsO (N-5) with Navy’s Middle East Force, Bahrain. He was the first us Defense Attaché in Oman, where he introduced the M-60 tank to its armored regiment. He is an Arabic linguist, retiring after thirty years as an Arabian Peninsula intelligence officer (J-2), usCENTCOM. He is the founder and president of the Marine Corps Vietnam Tankers Historical Foundation. This book is the third in a three-book series.