Critical Analysis of “The Tunnels of Cu Chi” The book I read for my book report was The Tunnels of Cu Chi by Tom Mangold and John Penycate. The reason I picked up this book is because I am very interested in various aspects of certain wars and I am definitely intrigued by the tunnel warfare of the Vietnam conflict. Imagine you are at war and you are going through a tunnel in the middle of the jungle. You have no idea what's in the tunnel but you think it could be the enemy. Your commander is asking for volunteers to investigate. Are you a volunteer or not? This is the question that some American soldiers have faced in the heat of battle. They had no idea what they were getting into, but with the adrenaline pumping, many went for it. They are now called “tunnel rats” and this book tells what they experienced during their stay in Vietnam. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay This book is one of the best books I have ever read on Tunnel Warfare. Every war has something unique to it, WWI was trench warfare, WWII was German blitzkrieg and the atomic bomb, and in Vietnam it would be tunnel warfare. American Special Forces units, trained for surface combat, had to start from scratch when it came to tunnels, all their manuals had to be rewritten with this new fighting style. The “Tunnel Rats” were a race unto themselves. These were men who needed a sense of adventure in a land of many unknowns and these men, regardless of their rank, were highly regarded among their comrades. The tunnels themselves, although they looked very simple, were quite efficient in their construction. The tunnels were designed to withstand direct hits from 500lb bombs, CS riot gas, water flooding and destruction from aerial vehicles moving overhead and had the ability to detect through its incoming planes several kilometers away. The tunnels were underground cities; they had everything you could imagine, makeshift hospitals where doctors did everything from delivering babies to amputating limbs and performing brain surgery with tools like hand saws and homemade drills. They also contained conference rooms, dormitories, printing works, and munitions factories. Some Viet Cong soldiers would have spent up to 5 years in the tunnels without coming out for much more than a few hours. There were more than 200 kilometers of tunnels in total, connecting all the hamlets of a village and other villages up to 20 km away. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys books about war or anyone interested in mystery stories. Even though it's not a detective novel, just reading about some of the things that happened with the tunnels keeps you on the edge of your seat like a good mystery; you never know what to expect next. Some things you would think could never happen; for example finding complete printing presses or large pieces of field artillery fully assembled in the tunnels. You would never expect it, but it happened very frequently. This is the main reason why American special forces units on search and destroy missions have had great difficulty finding the enemy. They buried everything, then took it out in the safety of the night and put it back into the ground on..