A newly published journal exposes the reality of serving in wartime

Vietnam

MY TOUR OF DUTY in the rear echelons of the 9th Infantry Division during the Vietnam War began in May of 1967. I had spent a year in Infantry School, as told in my previously published memoir – Infantry School: A Soldier's Journal – preparing for combat. The Army chose then to commission me in the Adjutant Generals Corps. Although I have ranted against my fate, I must admit that it gave me a peculiar vantage point from which to observe the war. With the training of an infantry officer and the education of a lawyer as well as the vantage point of an infantry division headquarters, I am, I suppose, better qualified than most to comment on the histories that are being written of America's most unpopular war.

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Vietnam wasn't an unpopular war when I enlisted on March 3rd, 1966. We were still riled up at the audacity of the communists. How dare they fire on American warships in international waters. Sure, they were spying on the North Vietnamese. However, backed by the Soviet Union and Communist China, they were invading a peaceful nation to the south. Well, that's what we believed then and, as it turns out, that is just what was happening.

I was motivated to write my memoir because of the nonsense that my children, nieces, and nephews were learning in school. Fed by the lies perpetrated by the anti-war activists of the Vietnam War era, now teaching in our colleges and universities, a perverted version of history has become the “official” story of the conflict. I decided that someone has to stand up for the truth.

My story is not politically correct, but it is all true. I hope that it will find its way into the hands of future scholars, and that it will at least inspire them to question the propaganda to which they are being exposed.