is an extraordinary book that will capture the heart of every American

PHOENIX— Gaz Crittenden’s JUNGLE RULES: a novel of Viet Nam has been released by the Dan River Press.  It has already been covered by the San Francisco Chronicle!  But the most important praise comes from the men who lived JUNGLE RULES, Viet Nam veterans.  On May 18th Crittenden met with his fellow vets, “…a rapt audience” according to the Chronicle. "I know where I am," Crittenden joked. "I'm in San Francisco, the place I spent my last night before I shipped out."   Crittenden received some knowing laughs. Many of the men spent an evening in the city before heading to Travis Air Force Base, the last stop in America. The comment earned Crittenden the blessing of legitimacy from his fellow vets. Crittenden embarks on a Book Tour this fall which ends at the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington, D.C., on November 11th.  For more information, please contact Crittenden’s publicist, Carole V. Bartholomeaux, 602 404 8018 or Carole@b-pr.com .

“Many books have been written about the Viet Nam war, and like many vets I’ve read quite a few of them, trying to figure out what we were doing there. But nothing that I have read captures for me what still haunts me most about the Viet Nam experience,” Crittenden explained. “I’m speaking of the process of dehumanization that affects people in a combat environment. In its milder form, this process is reflected in the happenings at an Abu Ghraib Prison; at its worst in the horror of a My Lai massacre. Everyone in combat is affected. No one is immune. It is simply a question of degree.”

“Viet Nam in the late 1960s and early 70s was a dangerous place,” Crittenten continued.  “About two and a half million American men and women served there then and of those about 300,000, or almost one in seven, were killed or wounded. But the majority of our troops were in support roles: military police, engineers, truck drivers, helicopter mechanics, cooks, clerks, doctors, nurses, undertakers. When you take that into account, the chances of an infantryman being killed or wounded during a one-year tour were better than 50 percent. Imagine playing Russian roulette with three rounds in the cylinder?”

An Amazon.com reviewer wrote:  “Without preaching or explaining, this book simply takes the reader there, unlike anything I have ever read about any war. It's called a novel, but it reads as truth. Nothing is spared. Crittenden made me care about these men…as half a World away we sat contented watching edited, manipulated two-dimensional image-bites on a 20" screen. If you care about what happens to young men thrust into the face of violent death…buy this book -- then pass it to a friend.”

 “This is what I have to share,” Crittenden concluded. “Is it important? I don’t know. Perhaps Jungle Rules can help us better understand the burning of enemy combatants’ bodies in Afghanistan. Perhaps it can help us better understand ourselves. In America we idealize our military and expect them to live up to the highest moral standards. Here in our World of automobiles and houses with hot and cold running water and televisions and computers and air conditioners, where we all live under a rational set of rules, such standards are easy to impose. In the Jungle, the rules are different.”