The Long Gray Line

"Enormously rich in detail and written with a novelist's brilliance . . . A very moving book." - James Salter, The Washington Post Book World

A classic of its kind, The Long Gray Lineis the twenty-five-year saga of the West Point class of 1966. With a novelist's eye for detail, Rick Atkinson illuminates this powerful story through the lives of three classmates and the women they loved - from the boisterous cadet years, to the fires of Vietnam, to the hard peace and internal struggles that followed the war. The rich cast of characters also includes Douglas MacArthur, William C. Westmoreland, and a score of other memorable figures. The class of 1966 straddled afault line in American history, and Atkinson's masterly book speaks for a generation of American men and women about innocence, patriotism, and the price we pay for our dreams.

An immediate New York Timesbestseller upon its original publication, the twentieth anniversary edition includes a new foreword by the author.