The book analyses events and episodes of the Vietnam war that were witnessed or experienced by men and women in the field. It draws on a wide variety of accounts from all ranks of soldiers, officers, platoon leaders, regular privates, medics, nurses, and journalists. Collectively the testimonies synthesize the various thoughts and feelings of combatants and non-combatants into a comprehensive picture of what it meant to fight and often die in Vietnam. From that war of fifty years ago, it carries the reader into the wars waged in the Middle East that only recently ended with similar accounts of actions and events that have repeated the waste that was Vietnam.

 

The book delves into the human physical and psychological cost of war and implicitly makes the case for diplomacy over force, restraint, and modesty over hubris. It establishes the importance of cause to the combatant's ability to fight winningly and to remain psychologically sound in battle and afterward.