Evil Iguana Productions LLC taking “51-50 the Book” to the big screen

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BURBANK, CA  For author [18 books to date] and long time TV and radio talk show host Ron Irwin it all started about 2 years ago when he visit the annual Miramar Air Show in San Diego.  He along with about a hundred other former Marines and Vietnam War veterans were honored win a pin to commemorate their service.  After the ceremony Ron walked out of the hanger and almost instantly saw an A4 Skyhawk jet.  The last time he had seen that very airplane was in Chu Lai, Vietnam in 1966 and that day its vision caused a rush of long and happily suppressed memories to rage through his mind like an avalanche of extremely powerful and often unpleasant memories.  To purge himself of those memories Ron wrote his book: 51-50 the Book.

The book is filled many powerful doses of dark humor.

On his way back from a senseless but mandatory school in Tokyo Ron stopped in Iwakuni, Japan and was told there would be no flight to Vietnam for at least three days.  So Ron went to the nearby town of Hiroshima where he met a small band.  They asked Ron to be sure to come back the next day and he did only to learn it was talent contest night and they wanted Ron to sing.  So Ron, in the city his nation had nuked only 21 years earlier and traumatized by the two hundred Japanese people staring at him an obviously American military man as he sang Home on the Range.  He won second place.  

Just three days before he was to leave Vietnam he was sent to pick up a Marine General.  As he drove the General to Headquarters he asked the General, “Why the hell are we here, sir””  The General paused and thought and then said, “Honestly I don’t know?”  Ron was instantly and deeply traumatized.  Tens of thousands killed or wounded and the General does not know why?  

So the very next day Ron took a very long walk out into Viet Cong territory, found a little hooch that served beer.  He had a brief but enjoyable encounter with a Vietnamese woman, drank some beer and watched as American airplanes dropped napalm very near his location.  Shortly after two North Vietnamese soldiers approached the hooch.  Ron bought them each a beer and then started walking back to Do Nang still miraculously alive.  

In looking back on my 13 months in Vietnam including surviving numerous mortar attacks, dengue fever and malaria it became very clear to me that in many ways I was the luckiest man on earth, certainly more so than the more than 58,000 who lost their lives to that senseless war. Said Ron Irwin.

After reading the book Craig Deering became filled with a vision and reached out to Ron with a plan to bring his story to the big screen.  Craig Deering is an award winning writer and director and is now working on the screenplay for this book.  As of now it Is most likely that Evil Iguana Productions. LLC will produce and distribute the film but both Ron and Craig have agreed to remain open and flexible with the ultimate goal of getting the story told.

You don’t need to wait for the release of the movie.  You may order your copy of the book now here. Please note that Ron has pledged 20% of the net proceeds of all book sale to be split equally between the Vietnam Veterans of America and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.