The pain still lingers after all these years.... Nothing will ever change the bitter national experience we call the Vietnam War. It is set in stone - in the smooth gleaming black granite that bears the names of more than 58,200 sons and daughters of America who lost their lives in that brutal conflict. We can't go back and correct our mistakes now. The best we can do is try to understand what happened and why it happened, so we can learn from it and never allow it to happen again. We all played a role in it - those who went, and those who remained behind, those who believed deeply in their positions on both sides of the issue, and those who felt they had no stake at all in it and didn't give a damn one way or the other about the war. Even they in their indifference played a role, whether they knew it or not.

If someone were to ask me today to sum up my feelings about the war in a single word, that word could only be "betrayal." The thread of betrayal is woven throughout this memoir. For almost thirty years after my return to the States from Southeast Asia, I spoke nearly nothing of my experiences and feelings about the war. Now, after all these years, this is my first attempt to set my thoughts about it down in writing in an organized way. It is my catharsis, my expurgation of thoughts and emotions that have been locked away inside for three decades. More than a few tears were shed in its genesis. Parts may be depressing and difficult for some to read, particularly for those who may have shared similar experiences. For those who find it too heavy in places, I'll disclose now that it does have an uplifting ending.

I don't claim to be a military historian, but the specific events I describe are true and accurate in every detail to the best of my knowledge. I realize the opinions expressed herein are just that - opinions. Not everyone will share all of them, not even among other veterans. Many who read this may have opposing points of view that for them, are just as valid as mine are to me. But this is not necessarily an effort to convert anyone to my way of thinking. Its purpose is really twofold. The first is to externalize the pent up feelings I've held within for so long. Second, and more importantly, it is to record for my children and for theirs the way things looked through the eyes of this one American GI, as I remember them, during one of the most turbulent times in our nation's history. It was a time that had a very significant impact on my life and on the lives of millions of others.