Journalist Matt Proietti was handed down an assignment in 2008 on Chief Master Sgt. Richard L. Etchberger and Project Heavy Green. As he began to research for the assignment, he soon realized that one piece would not be enough. He wrote three pieces on the life and career of Dick Etchberger and was contacted by Etchberger’s youngest son Cory, who had mentioned that he had been thinking about writing a book on his father. That is how the newly released “At All Costs” came to be.
The book not only focuses on Etchberger’s heroic efforts during a secret mission in Laos during the Vietnam War (which was released publicly decades after) and his tragic death during that mission, but also on how his childhood and upbringing in Hamburg influenced the young man he became. Proietti begins the novel with an author’s note explaining how the book came to be and his own journey in researching and writing about Etch. Richard Etchberger, the second of Etch’s three children, wrote the foreword which recalls the two phone calls that mark his memories of his father with the first being the call about his death on March 12, 1968 and the July 7, 2010 call to his younger brother Cory from President Obama about his father receiving the Medal of Honor. Cory wrote about his father in the afterword.
At the time I started reading the book, I had some knowledge on Etchberger’s career and life from presentations given by his sons, but not so much knowledge on the Vietnam War and American history during that time. Proietti easily works in enough explanation of the happenings at the time for the reader to understand without losing the flow of the story.
Rather than write about Etchberger’s life chronologically, Proietti starts the book with Etch’s older brother Robert looking into Etch’s casket and how the true story of his death was kept secret for decades. Throughout the book, the chapters focus on Etchberger’s career, the mission, his childhood, his family life and how all of those parts influenced each other. Not only does the reader hear from his sons Steven, Richard and Cory, but also from those who knew him growing up and those he worked with at one point or another during his career.
“At All Costs” is an easy read and gives the reader a sense of just who Richard Etchberger was and the true story of the secret radar mission that led to his death and the 42 years it took for America to be able to recognize his actions by awarding him the Medal of Honor.
Featured in the book along with the author’s note, foreword and afterword are 16 pages of photographs, the remarks given by President Obama at the September 21, 2010 Medal of Honor presentation and the citation accompanying the award as well as an epilogue featuring the people who were a part of the book in some way.
For more information on “At All Costs” and to purchase a copy, visit www.atallcosts.org.
