Skip content
Get a free audiobook AND support bookstores Make the switch
Of Rice and Men by Richard Galli
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account
Libro.fm app

Get a free audiobook when you make the switch!

When you start a new membership in support of local bookstores with the promo code SWITCH, you’ll get a bonus audiobook credit at sign-up.

Make the switch

Gift audiobook credit bundles

You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.

Start gifting

Of Rice and Men

A Novel of Vietnam

$20.00

Get for $14.99 with membership
Narrator Paul Michael
Length 10 hours 8 minutes
Language English
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

Spreading democracy takes more than cutting-edge military hardware. Winning the hearts and minds of a troubled nation is a special mission we give to bewildered young soldiers who can’t speak the native language, don’t know the customs, can’t tell friends from enemies, and–in this wonderfully outrageous Iraq-era novel about Vietnam–wonder why they have to risk their lives spraying peanut plants, inoculating pigs, and hauling miracle rice seed for Ho Chi Minh.

Brash, eye-opening, and surprisingly comic, Of Rice and Men displays the same irreverent spirit as the black-comedy classics Catch-22 and MASH–as it chronicles the American Army’s little known “Civil Affairs” soldiers who courageously roam hostile war zones, not to kill or to destroy, but to build, to feed, and to heal. Unprepared, uncertain, and naive, they find it impossible to make the skeptical population fall in love with them.

But it’s thrilling to watch them try.

Among the unforgettable characters: Guy Lopaca, an inept Army-trained interpreter who can barely say “I can’t speak Vietnamese” in Vietnamese, but has no trouble chatting with stray dogs and water buffalo. Guy’s friends include “Virgin Mary” Crocker, a pragmatic nurse earning a fortune spending nights with homesick soldiers; Paul Gianelli, a heroic builder of medical clinics who doesn’t want to be remembered badly, so he never goes home; and Tyler DeMudge, whose cure for every problem is a chilly martini, a patch of shade, and the theory that every bad event in life is “good training” for enduring it again.

Pricelessly funny, disarming, thought-provoking, as fresh as the morning headlines, and bursting with humor, affection, and pride, Of Rice and Men is a sincere tribute to those young men and women, thrust into our hearts-and-minds wars, who try to do absolute good in a hopeless situation.

Richard Galli was a member of GIs for Peace, learning Vietnamese at the Defense Language Institute in El Paso, Texas, when the brand-new draft lottery assigned the call-up number "330" to his birthday. A lucky draw would have required his entry into the armed forces only if the North Vietnamese had established a beachhead in California. He wasn't so lucky. For more than 20 years Galli was a litigator in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1999, he closed his law office so that he could spend more time at home helping to care for his son, who had become paralyzed in a swimming accident on the Fourth of July, 1998. Galli's first book, Rescuing Jeffrey, is an unconventional memoir about the first ten days following the accident.

Paul Michael is a stage, screen, and television actor of international status. His TV credits include leading roles in a number of British sitcoms. He has acted onstage in plays ranging from Macbeth to The Wizard of Oz.

Richard Galli was a member of GIs for Peace, learning Vietnamese at the Defense Language Institute in El Paso, Texas, when the brand-new draft lottery assigned the call-up number "330" to his birthday. A lucky draw would have required his entry into the armed forces only if the North Vietnamese had established a beachhead in California. He wasn't so lucky. For more than 20 years Galli was a litigator in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1999, he closed his law office so that he could spend more time at home helping to care for his son, who had become paralyzed in a swimming accident on the Fourth of July, 1998. Galli's first book, Rescuing Jeffrey, is an unconventional memoir about the first ten days following the accident.

Paul Michael is a stage, screen, and television actor of international status. His TV credits include leading roles in a number of British sitcoms. He has acted onstage in plays ranging from Macbeth to The Wizard of Oz.

Libro.fm app

Get a free audiobook when you make the switch!

When you start a new membership in support of local bookstores with the promo code SWITCH, you’ll get a bonus audiobook credit at sign-up.

Make the switch

Gift audiobook credit bundles

You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.

Start gifting

Reviews

Advance praise for Of Rice and Men

“Of Rice and Men honors the American men and women who served in Vietnam, and shows respect for the Vietnamese people, yet it is still able to make us laugh at the war’s expense. In the deft hands of Richard Galli, we laugh out loud and cry out loud, as well. This is the most unforgettable story of Vietnam that I have ever read.”
–Robin Moore, author of The Hunt for Bin Laden

"Richard Galli's wonderful novel "Of Rice and Men" is every bit as much a Vietnam war novel as the best combat stories, but warmer, more real, and exquisitely funny. Who knows if the combat troops had been there to support the mission of the folks who built, farmed and healed, rather than the other way around, the outcome of the war might have been different."
--Phillip Jennings, author of Nam-A-Rama

“Some good laughs, some wonderful scenes. A creative, new-generation film director might turn this into Vietnam’s M*A*S*H.”
–John M. Del Vecchio, author of The 13th Valley

“Of Rice and Men is wonderful and wonderfully well written. It’s a singular addition to the literature of the Vietnam War; a refreshing tour de ‘farce’ of the first order.”
–Bernard Edelman, author of Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam Expand reviews
Get a free audiobook AND support bookstores Make the switch