I Pledge Allegiance (Vietnam Series #1)

by Chris Lynch

Overview

Four best friends. Four ways to serve their country.

Morris, Rudi, Ivan, and Beck are best friends for life. So when one of the teens is drafted into the Vietnam War, the others sign up, too. Although they each serve in a different branch, they are fighting the war together--and they pledge to do all they can to come home together.Haunted by dreams of violence and death, Morris makes it his personal mission to watch over his friends--and the best place to do that is in the US Navy. Stationed off the coast of Vietnam on the USS Boston, Morris and his fellow sailors provide crucial support to the troops on the ground.But the Boston itself isn't safe from attack. And as Morris finds his courage and resolve tested like never before, he keeps coming back to a single thought.He made a pledge. He must keep them safe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780545388498
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	11/01/2011
Series:	Chris Lynch's Vietnam Series , #1
Sold by:	Scholastic, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	468,223
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	12 - 15 Years

About the Author

Chris Lynch is the author of numerous acclaimed books for middle-grade and teen readers, including the Vietnam and World War II series and the National Book Award finalist Inexcusable. He teaches in the Lesley University creative writing MFA program, and divides his time between Massachusetts and Scotland.

Read an Excerpt

I have had the dream a lot. It's a nightmare. Ivan shouldn't be surprised to hear I have had the dream again. I watch the news. These days even if you don't watch the news, you watch the news. It finds you. It's everywhere. The whole world is Vietnam now. The surprise is that everybody in the entire United States is not having the same nightmare as me, every single night.
Because my dream is a crystal clear vision of torn flesh and burned flesh and the end of everything we know, all dying there in the scorching jungle of Vietnam. Four great friends, one mighty beast of a friendship shredded to bits by that war thing going on.
All four of us die every single time. Sometimes it's in a different order. Sometimes we all die at once. Sometimes it's a wall of fire and sometimes a hail of bullets, stabbing, slicing, exploding or drowning.
But always we die, every time.
And it's my fault, every time.
Because I let it happen. Which is why I can't let it happen.
Which is why we have the pledge.

Editorial Reviews

Lynch (Inexcusable) has trouble finding the emotional core of his Vietnam War novel, first in a planned series, making the story’s outcome feel both inevitable and pointless. When Rudi—one in a group of four tight-knit 18- and 19-year-old friends in Boston—gets drafted, the rest of the boys honor their pledge to enlist, each joining a different branch of the armed forces. While this all-for-one commitment isn’t beyond belief, Rudi is portrayed as mentally incompetent and is unlikely to have been accepted for service, undercutting the premise. Issues like the morality of the war and the protests are glossed over as the book thrusts the narrator, Morris, into his new life in the U.S. Navy. This is a fairly ordinary war tale, as new soldiers are introduced (with the usual archetypes, from the scared kid pressured into enlisting by his family to the token tough black man, an awkwardly handled character, especially in light of racial unrest in the Navy during Vietnam), followed by the expected battles, tragedies, and inability to explain the horrors of war. Ages 9–12. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Chris Lynch's World War II series:

* "An expertly crafted war story with fluid prose, bleak humor, careful attention to historic detail, and a view of 'The Good War' worth pondering." -- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, starred review

"All the sizzle, chaos, noise and scariness of war is clay in the hands of ace storyteller Lynch." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Though aimed at younger readers, Lynch doesn't write down, instead offering a powerful taste of war on a personal level." -- Publishers Weekly


Praise for Chris Lynch's Vietnam series:

"The best Vietnam War novels yet for this age range." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Lynch brilliantly captures the war in small details." -- Booklist

"A fine balance of thoughtfulness and gritty action." -- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books





 

From the Publisher

Gr 7 Up—Beck, Ivan, Morris, and Rudi have stuck by one another since the fourth grade: missing movies due to groundings, standing up to bullies, and staying unified even when they all like the same girl. A year older than his buddies, Rudi receives a draft notice first and his friends follow him to Vietnam. Morris joins the Navy; Beck, the Air Force; Ivan, the Army; and Rudi, the Marines. Stationed on the USS Boston, Morris has a much different view of the war than his friends. His outlook changes when he is reassigned to patrol the rivers of Vietnam. While he gradually drops contact with Ivan and Beck, he takes comfort in letters from Rudi, even as Rudi grows more comfortable with the violence that has become familiar to them both. Lynch delivers an action-packed examination of the bonds and trials of friendship. Rudi and Morris are the most developed characters; Beck's and Ivan's stories seem left for the focus of a sequel. There are guns, napalm, missiles, and rockets, though Lynch largely brushes over discussion of America's involvement in the war, an omission that will lead to questions from savvy readers. Teens may be willing to tackle this story, if only for the weapons.—Chris Shoemaker, New York Public Library

School Library Journal

In his nightmares, high-school senior Morris sees "torn flesh and burned flesh and the end of everything we know, all dying there in the scorching jungle of Vietnam"; he and his friends die, and it's his fault. Ivan, Rudi, Beck and Morris have been friends since fourth grade. Now the war in Vietnam looms, and they pledge to not go voluntarily. But when Rudi receives his draft notice, they all sign up, each with a different branch of the military. Morris signs with the Navy, figuring he somehow can watch over his friends and keep them safe from the USS Boston, a heavy guided-missile cruiser. He later realizes he can't, but it's his "small crazy," a belief that keeps him sane in the midst of war. Initiating a new series with this volume, Lynch offers something valuable: a very good war novel for a preteen and middle-school audience, with enough violence to be an honest portrayal of war, but without the sex and rough language that often keep such novels out of the hands of a ready audience. The story stays rooted in Morris' first-person point of view, with flashbacks to develop characters, though Morris is the only one fully realized. Morris is an innocent caught in the winds of war, and young readers will eagerly anticipate future installments in the series. (Historical fiction. 9-14)

Kirkus Reviews