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Description of  Our Year of War: Two Brothers, Vietnam, and a Nation Divided

The gritty and engaging story of two brothers–Chuck and Tom Hagel–who went to war in Vietnam, fought in the same unit, and saved each other's life. One supported the war, the other detested it, but they fought it together. America was divided. Flag-draped caskets came home by the thousands. Riots ravaged our cities. Assassins shot our political leaders. Black fought white, young fought old, fathers fought sons. And it was the year that two brothers from Nebraska went to war. In Vietnam, Chuck and Tom Hagel served side by side in the same rifle platoon. Together they fought in the Tet Offensive, battled snipers in Saigon, chased the enemy through the jungle, and each saved the other's life under fire. But when their one-year tour was over, these two brotherscame home side-by-side but no longer in step–one supporting the war, the other hating it. Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and his brother Tom epitomized the best, and lived through the worst, of the most tumultuous, amazing, and consequential year in the last half century. Following the brothers' paths from the prairie heartland through a war on the far side of the world and back to a divided America, Our Year of War tells the story of two brothers at war–a gritty, poignant, and resonant story of a family and a nation divided yet still united.