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By Root 771 0

of this misunderstood war, fought the wrong way but for noble goals, but I must make it clear that I am not a veteran. My fire is not fueled by personal experience. Rather it is fueled by a conservative, middle-class upbringing, which taught that one does not cast aside those who have bled for the republic. Nor does one judge the combat behavior and performance of soldiers according to political perceptions of the cause for which they serve. They are separate issues, and it was this deliberate blurring of the line that first sparked a commitment to this subject. When I originally began researching the war–my curiosity driven by my ignorance of the topic– the library bookshelves were dominated by Lieutenant Calley and My Lai, a weak man and a shameful event that common sense told me did not speak for the average soldier. I could find, however, only rare rebuttal to the myth of My Lai typifying the infantryman's role in the war. At that time, scholars, journalists, and writers seemed mostly interested in spotlighting only the most bestial episodes of American involvement in Vietnam, to make political points regarding the folly or immorality of the war. They gave small thought to what such selective coverage did to the reputation of that majority of soldiers whose tour included no bloody ditch but only the hardships and fears and camaraderie that have always been the infantryman's companions. My aim is to give voice to those veterans whose experiences, having not included aberrations like My Lai, had been filtered out by the liberal media. During the years that my three books, Battle for Hue, Into Laos, and Death Valley, were published, a healing began at the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial, and those bookshelves that had previously enraged me began filling with other works by men like Santoli, Webb, Miller, Grant, Del Vecchio, Downs, and Caputo, voices that offered this nation a more compassionate and rounded glimpse into the world of the grunt.

The stereotype of the veteran as baby killer or heroin addict seemed to have faded, and I began the research for this manuscript not for any fiery reasons but almost as a reflex. There seemed less reason to continue the effort, but the old passions were revived by, of all things, the movie Platoon–which supposedly honored the veteran–and more specifically the media's embracing of a film chock-full of the old stereotypes, with the claim that this slice of Hollywood was history. During the interviews for this manuscript, Platoon was a secondary concern for me and many veterans. Almost all were enthused by the film's steely glare at the humping, fatigue, heat, language, helmet graffiti, and leeches–the very texture of realism–but they were also gravely concerned by the larger message fed to a generally uninformed public by the film's subplot of murder, rape, drug abuse, and cowardly leadership, ad nauseam. Platoon was not an apolitical examination of the American infantryman in Vietnam, but a sensationalized compilation of worst-case scenarios. Its very popularity has left many veterans relieved that their hardships have finally been seen by the public, but uneasy that every vet will now be associated with the crimes highlighted by the film. Given the context in which this manuscript developed, it is offered in part in rebuttal to those who automatically believe the worst about the Vietnam veteran, including those academics who have brought Platoon into the classroom and journalists whose insight is so shallow that they could produce headlines like “PLATOON: Vietnam As It Really Was.”

Although this manuscript has been augmented by the statistics of the official record, its heart comes from interviews (mostly by mail and telephone) with those who commanded and those who served in the units committed to the 1970 Cambodian operation. Considering my status as an outsider, a nonveteran, I especially appreciate the assistance I received from these men and will list by their unit those I interviewed in detail as well as those who played a lesser role of reviewing the rough draft.

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