Contents ADVISORY BOARD ix PREFACE xi After Our War Conscientious Objectors and Other Draft Resisters 1 Apocalypse Now The Vietnam War as Hallucinatory Experience 6 The Armies of the Night The March on the Pentagon 16 "The Ballad of the Green Berets" U.S. Special Forces in Vietnam 25 The Best and the Brightest Policymakers of the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations 29 Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans African Americans and Vietnam 38 "Born in the U.S.A." Returning Home from the War 43 vi Contents Born on the Fourth of July Disabled Veterans in America 50 A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam Military Advisor John Paul Vann and His Experiences in Vietnam 57 Casualties of War Atrocities in Vietnam 65 Coming Home Antiwar Vietnam Veterans 72 The Deer Hunter The Fall of Saigon 79 Dispatches Khe Sanh and the Tet Offensive 89 Fields of Fire GI View of the Antiwar Movement 96 Fire in the Lake Impact of the War on Vietnamese Society 102 "Fortunate Son" Vietnam as a Working-Class War 111 Friendly Fire "Friendly Fire" Casualties and Stateside Grief 117 Full Metal Jacket Lessons of Basic Training 123 Go Tell the Spartans U.S. Advisory Effort in Vietnam 128 Going After Cacciato Desertion during the Vietnam War 133 The Green Berets U.S. Media Coverage of the War 138 The Hanoi Hilton American POWs 146 Hearts and Minds American Apathy after the U.S. Withdrawal 152 Home before Morning American Nurses in Vietnam 160 In Country The Vietnam Veterans Memorial 166 In Pharaoh's Army "Survivor's Guilt" 172 Contents vii In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam Robert McNamara and the War 177 The Killing Fields The Khmer Rouge Takeover of Cambodia 185 "Masters of War" The Military-Industrial Complex 194 Meditations in Green Drug Abuse in Vietnam 202 "Ohio" The Kent State Shootings 208 "Okie from Muskogee" Anthems of the ' 'Silent Majority " 217 Paco's Story Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among Vietnam Veterans 221 Platoon Decline in U.S. Military Performance in Vietnam: Causes and Consequences 227 The Quiet American American Intervention in the French-Vietminh War 237 Rambo: First Blood, Part II The Vietnam War and American Self-image in the 1980s 247 The Real War American Military Strategy and Its Toll on Vietnam's Land and People 254 A Rumor of War ' 'Americanization'' of the War 262 Song of Napalm Vietnam Veteran Poetry 268 Sticks and Bones Postwar Reintegration into Family Networks 273 The Things They Carried The War in Quang Ngai Province 279 The 13th Valley "Humping the Boonies": Vietnam's Terrain and Climate 285 "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" Rock and Roll Sound Track to the War 291 Winners and Losers Women Correspondents in Vietnam 296 viii Contents OTHER NOTABLE WORKS CONCERNING THE VIETNAM WAR Films 303 Songs 306 Literature 308 INDEX 313.