Blood on the Risers

An Airborne Soldier's Thirty-Five Months in Vietnam

By: John Leppelman

Narrated by: Scott Sowers

Length: 2 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

In three straight years he was a paratrooper, an army seaman, and a LRRP - and he lived to tell about it. As an FNG paratrooper in the 173d Airborne, John Leppelman made that unit's only combat jump in Vietnam. Then he spent months in fruitless search of the enemy, watching as his buddies died because of poor leadership and lousy weapons. Often it seemed the only way out of the carnage in the central highlands was in a body bag.

But Leppelman did get out, transferring first to the army's riverboats and then the all-volunteer Rangers, one of the ballsiest units in the war. In three tours of duty, that ended only when malaria forced him back to the States, Leppelman saw the war as few others did, a Vietnam that many American boys didn't live to tell about, but whose valor and sacrifice survive in this book.

©2003 John Leppelman (P)2003 Random House Audio

Missing Chapters

The written book is much more interesting. The Audible should go on for about 20 hours to cover the written version. Very disappointed.

Great book, sadly audible version is abridged

This is a fantastic book, having read it a few times years before. Wanting to try the audible version, i was saddened to find they left out huge amounts from the printed version. Do yourselves a favor and read the book. Audible version was done well, narrator has a great voice - but they left out way to much of the story.

Intriguing & Exciting.

I liked the details provided about the reality about the Vietnam War as a soldier.

Loved it

awesome stories I would recommend it if you enjoy stories about being in the service

Great listen, intense and real

Loved it overall, sad and very real. Great book for young men , a look at jungle warfare.

Great but short

loved it but short. A bit more detail would of been nice but relays the story well. I thank all Veterans for thier service and sacrifice.

Way too abridged

John Leppelman’s book is a great story. I have read it several times. It was very well performed by Scott Sowers. It fails in that it was way too condensed. So much of the detail that Mr. Leppelman included in his memoir was left out. Two hours does not do this book justice. I enjoyed what I heard but having read the paper pages, and knowing that so much was omitted leaves me disappointed. I wish they would do an unabridged version.

very short.

The narration was very good, however the book was overall very short without hardly any details. The entire book is like 2 hours long and that's 2 hours you don't learn anything. there's zero development of anybody including the main protagonist. This is definitely a book I would pass by.

Missing content

Read this years ago. Saw it on here thought I’d give it a go. Realized within the first three chapters that it was missing a lot of content. Already disappointed in purchase

Very Unrealistic Story

This book was written by someone who doesn’t know much about Vietnam or the conflict,