Charlie 1/5 Cav by Steve Hassett

teve Hassett enlisted in the Army when he was 19 years old. He served as an infantryman in South Vietnam from 1966-67 where he rose to be a squad leader. Hassett could have written a memoir, but he chose to write Charlie 1/5 Cav: An Airmobile Infantry Company’s 67 Months in Vietnam (Deeds Publishing, 434 pp. $22.95, paper; $4.99, Kindle), a history of his 1^st Cavalry Division unit in Vietnam from 1964-72.

“Soldiers flying into battle and leaping from helicopters became one of the lasting images from Vietnam, but the reality was usually quite different,” Hasset writes. Charlie Company did go into combat in Hueys, but usually they were carried to a place on a map for an unknown reason. They would then hump the boonies hoping to make contact with the enemy. Even though they weren’t always leaping into hot LZ’s, these grunts had to deal with a host of hardships, including “stifling heat, mud, boredom, rain, mind-numbing exhaustion, more rain, comradeship, cold, fear, isolation, confusion, and too much death.” 

Charlie Company’s first mission was a typical search-and destroy-operation. By 1972, Charlie was in a defensive posture.

The unit fought in a variety of terrains and various missions. By 1967, the missions fell into five categories: short and uneventful search-and-destroy operations, pacification sweeps, artillery base guarding, and occasional firefights. Not to mention a few battles against a worthy foe. Charlie 1/5 was brought in on the second day of the portentious November 1965 Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, but was not involved in any fighting. Instead, the company provided support for one of the Cav’s artillery bases.

Several common threads run through the encounters. Both sides did a lot of ambushing, for one thing. When casualties occurred, kedevac crew acted valourously to evacuate the wounded. Another theme is the massive air and artillery support brought to bear when Charlie Company was in a bind. And the crises that occurred when firepower could not be used.

Hassett could have used his year in Vietnam to write a Band of Brothers style book about himself and his comrades. However, his decision to concentrate on the unit’s history was a wise one. He does mention many individual soldiers, but there is little in the way of character development. He even downplays his own experiences. 

Steve Hassett in-country

This is truly the story of a company. By following it, we get a history of American involvement via the company’s experiences. Hassett does not use the book to take a position on the war and he is not waving the flag. He lets the reader figure out why things went wrong, although it seems clear that answering guerrilla tactics with ambushes and half-hearted pacification programs was ill-suited to the situation. 

Charlie Company tried its best and shed plenty of blood. Hassett names almost every soldier from the unit who died during the war.

Some had letters left at The Wall from family and friends.These heartbreaking “wish you were here” primary sources are poignant because it forces you to wonder if the pain caused by the men’s deaths was justified. Hassett also makes effective use of memoirs, letters, and recollections. 

I recommend Charlie 1/5 Cav to anyone who wants to know what it was like to be in an infantry company in the Vietnam War. I wouldn’t start with it, but once you have read a general history of the war, Hassett’s book will provide a revealing micro view.   

–Kevin Hardy

Race in the Crucible of War by Gerald F. Goodwin

Gerald F. Goodwin’s well-researched Race in the Crucible of War: African American Servicemen and the War in Vietnam (University of Massachusetts Press, 304 pp. $32.95, paperback) tells the sad story of the American military race relations during the Vietnam War, the first fully racially integrated war fought by the U.S. armed forces.

Goodwin, who teaches history and political science at Le Moyne College and Onondaga Community College-SUNY, leans heavily on interviews he conducted with 58 African American Vietnam War veterans. Although those interviews provide a well-balanced picture of the racial situation in Vietnam, the book would have been enhanced by interviews with white and Vietnamese veterans. That said, a single author can only do so much interviewing, and having such an extensive African American veteran perspective in such detail is invaluable.

The racial situation in Vietnam was not a good one, and reflected the racial conflicts that were happening stateside in the 1960s and early 1970s. There were disturbances that led to violence at Long Binh Jail and aboard the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk, as well as pervasive discrimination in ranks, jobs, promotions, the military justice system, dress, and interpersonal relations. The military had little-to-no idea how to deal with these issues.

The U.S. military has always been a step ahead of America when it came to race relations, but it was only a small step. In combat, the expression was that there was no black or white, only green, and this was mainly true. However, in many rear-area base camps, in the Vietnamese cities, and on European and stateside bases, racial tension was pervasive and there were thousands of instances of racial tensions and conflict during the war. Once African American troops returned to the The World, racial discrimination was worse than it had been in the military.

Sometimes personal perceptions do not reflect reality, which can be a problem in a book that heavily relies on interviews. For example, many of the interviewees say that the Vietnamese favored African Americans over whites for racial reasons. However, Goodwin points out that there was an effort by friendly Vietnamese to curry favor among Black troops and an effort by the enemy to weaken the American war effort by propagandizing American racial disparities. Those tactics were successful. 

This reader’s experience was that the Vietnamese in his Mekong Delta province were deeply prejudiced against African Americans and against anyone else who had darker skin color. One example is that RF/PF units were racially segregated with separate Vietnamese squads and squads made of darker-skinned Cambodians. Racism was, and is, not exclusively an American issue.

Race in the Crucible of War is a necessary and very accessible read. I would be interested in similar books about race relations between whites and African Americans in the military during the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Have race matters changed for the better or for worse, or have they remained the same? How did that compare with what was happening stateside in race relations at the same time?  Gerald Goodwin may be just the author to find out.

–Harvey Weiner

Getting Out of Saigon by Ralph White

Getting out of Saigon: How a 27-Year-Old American Banker Saved 113 Vietnamese Civilians (Simon & Schuster, 320 pp. $28.99) is a gripping memoir by Ralph White, who arrived in Saigon in April 1975 to work at the Chase Manhattan Bank’s branch in the then capital of South Vietnam. The book focuses on White’s attempt to get his Vietnamese employees and their families out of Vietnam during the last eleven days of the war.

This story would make an excellent novel, if it were not true. And Hollywood should make it into a movie, but only if they don’t change the compelling and entertaining facts White presents in the book. Getting out of Saigon teems with great characters and is written with sardonic wit. Yet, it has a constant tension about whether or not White’s mission will succeed. Reading it, I heard echoes of Catch‑22 absurdities and Schindler’s List throughout.

Stupidity at the highest levels of the American Embassy and at one of the world’s largest banks is the groundwork of this book. Chase Manhattan was the only bank to close its Hong Kong branch during the Korean War and had to put up with snickers from the other Hong Kong banks afterward/ That’s why the company refused to close its Saigon branch when every other bank in Saigon had done so—as if the two situations, 25 years apart, were the same. It thereby placed its Vietnamese employees at mortal risk.

To save them, the bank sent in Ralph White, young low-level, inexperienced employee. In contrast, in an effort to kill them, the North Vietnamese sent in the very experienced Gen. Van Tien Dung and his North Vietnamese Army. 

What’s more, U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin and Deputy Chief Wolfgang Lehmann, the two highest American officers in the embassy, were the only two Americans who thought Saigon would hold out and refused to allow any evacuation until it was too late. White calls them the “delusionists” who fiddled while Saigon burned and likely cost the lives of many Vietnamese people.

White, though, displayed great initiative, judgment, creativity, and chutzpah in saving his Vietnamese employees and their families. He admits to having a lot of dumb luck, but he really made his own luck. He and others had to work around the two delusionists, as well as the South Vietnamese government which forbad the evacuation of its citizens. Chase wanted only to save its key employees, but White was determined to evacuate all of them and their families – a total of 113 people.

Ralph White

The characters he encountered are novel-worthy. Ralph White was attracted to and evacuated a prostitute. He was helped by a Viet Cong commander who needed a Plan B. He interacted with the Ambassador and eventually with David Rockefeller, the Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan.

He worked with a remarkable array of Americans who helped him. White, a banker, exchanged his U.S. dollars into Vietnamese currency through an Indian black market moneychanger who set up shop under his window.

Each chapter covers a separate day. Unfortunately, thereis no “where are they now” as White has lost contact with his evacuees. I would love to learn what happened to some of the characters featured in the book. ‘

And I would love to know which one of the three beautiful Vietnamese tellers anonymously seduced him in the Philippines as a “thank you” for rescuing them. 

I suspect that the Ralph White would also like to know. 

–Harvey Weiner

Nam to Now by Michael Harold Davis

Nam to Now (JacksonDavis, 222 pp. $30, hardcover; $25, paper) is a collection of poems written mainly over the past decade by Michael Harold Davis, a U.S. Marine Corps Vietnam War veteran. His poetry book is one of a very few dealing with the Vietnam War containing verses written in a rhyming scheme.

In “William Harvey Little,” for instance, Davis writes:

I met him just days ago.

But we were actually kin.

Not because of the blood we have,

But because of where we’ve been.

We went to a war together,

We’ve shed the very same tears.

I didn’t know William Harvey long,

But it feels like 40 years.

And in  “Cup-A-Joe”:

But I had monsoons in Nam.

I’ve cycled in a hurricane.

But I would ride right into the eye,

If I could silence my brain.

The Blues begins with this stanza:

I hate that my woman left me.

But I know she had to go.

Why did she take the dog?

And why did she leave so slow?

There are also poems of love and loss, such as “Only a Parsec Away”

I speak a broken language.

When I have anything to say.

But then again and then again,

Words just get in the way.

There was a time way back in time,

I held her love in sway.

With ancient eyes, I see her,

She’s only a parsec away.

Davis makes frequent use of wordplay. Sometimes it works; other times it’s distracting. The poetry here is, for the most part, simplistic, but heartfelt and wrapped in a religious tone.

I recommend the book because every veteran’s voice cries out to be heard and Michael Harold Davis certainly has a distinctive poetic voice.

–Bill McCloud

Breath of a Tigress by David Ware

Dave Ware’s Breath of a Tigress: “She Kept Him Alive in Vietnam” (Lulu.com, 524 pp. $28.42, paper; $5.95, Kindle) is a massive novel of the Vietnam War that managed to keep my attention all the way through. The novel is not about the war so much as it is about the growth of a heroic figure as a result of his war experiences.

Tom Wade is a teenager living in Germany where his career-soldier father is stationed when both of his parents perish in a car accident. He then moves in with an aunt and uncle in northern Louisiana.

Blonde, with an athletic build and natural “James Bond charm,” Wade plays on his high school football team while keeping an eye on the news about the war in South Vietnam. Tragically, his girlfriend Katie, noted for her “beauty, brains and toughness,” dies from leukemia. After her death, he takes possesion of a golden pendant in the form of a tiger that Katie had told him was “a Tigress, much like me,” and that if she died it’d protect him.

Dreaming of “great adventure,” Wade joins the Army. The novel quickly moves to the war, where Wade is a combat-experienced Staff Sergeant carrying a shotgun and leading a Long Range Recon Patrol that has just made contact with the enemy.

Wade is seriously wounded and assumed dead when he has a strange encounter with a wild animal as a tiger comes within five feet of him—but it’s not a tiger. It’s a purring tigress and when it appears, his pain is gone and he seems uninjured. “Have I died and made my way to another world?” he thinks, and then walks out of the jungle and reaches the safety of an American unit.

After that otherworldly encounter, Wade is a changed man. He has newfound strength and new skills that borders on the supernatural. What does it all mean and how can he make the best use of these new powers?

At this point, it would have been very easy for Dave Ware to just allow his story to go off the rails, but he maintains control, tracing the growth of a heroic figure who doesn’t stray too far from the realm of possibility.

This is an amazingly well-written page turner.

–Bill McCloud

Ever Vigilant by Michael J. Hebert

Anyone who has read a Vietnam War memoir written by a draftee will discover a lot of familiar material in Ever Vigilant: Tales of the Vietnam War (CreateSpace, 322 pp. $19.95, paper: $5.99, Kindle) by Michael J. Hebert. But writing about what it was like to leave home as a teenager, endure ego-shattering training, arrive in a war zone, fear death, and engage in combat is forgivable because going through all those life-changing events invokes similar dramatic psychological reactions in most men.

Hebert, a life member of Vietnam Veterans of America, tells tales about all of the above and does so in an easily readable style filled with free-flowing memories and humor. Plus, he worked a job well outside the ordinary. Determined to avoid an infantry assignment, teenage draftee Hebert signed up for a third year of duty to get his choice of advanced training. Then, when all of the schools he wanted had no openings, he ended up as a watercraft operator trainee.

Arriving in-country in 1969, Hebert joined the 458th Transportation Company attached to the 18th Military Police Brigade of the 92nd MP Battalion and became the coxswain of the River Patrol Boat Magic Christian. That was a job that his water operator school did not prepare him for, and Hebert had to learn how to drive the boat on-the-job in combat.

After he did, his war experience took on a deeper dimension. Stationed at Vung Ro Bay, his unit had two RPBs that protected cargo ships unloading “bombs, napalm, bullets, weapons, fuel, and just about all the other tools of war” for transportation on tractor-trailer trucks or through pipelines to Tuy Hoa AFB and Phu Hiep Army camp.

Viet Cong sappers with underwater explosives were the main threat against the ships. Other VC forces attacked the base “frequently but not fervently with machine-gun fire, mortars, and rocket-propelled grenades, most of the time on Friday nights,” Hebert says.

The 458th didn’t have any officers when Hebert was there. Most of the men were E-4s serving under an NCOIC; a warrant officer commanded the base.  

“Young soldier are, by the very nature of their youth, relatively stupid and naïve,” Hebert says. “This was the case when the U.S. Army placed four 18- and 19-year-olds on a high-speed boat outfitted with three .50-caliber machine guns, a Honeywell grenade launcher that fires 250 grenades a minute, an M-79 grenade launcher, four M-16 rifles, a 12-gauge shotgun, four .45-caliber pistols, and a bottomless supply of ammunition.”

Not to mention that the boat “skipped across the water at speeds in excess of 30 knots.”    

Hebert quickly began to love firing weapons. “There is nothing—absolutely nothing—like the raucous thunder of a .50-caliber machine gun,” he says. On the other hand, he suffered breathlessness, a pounding heart, and an uncontrollable, twitching left leg as part of his initial combat action.

At sea, the RPBs interdicted targets with maximum force. “The youthful crews enjoyed making things explode,” Hebert says.

Mike Hebert

Ever Vigilant has a good number of combat scenes, but much of the book describes the off-duty diversions of Hebert and his buddies, a tightly-knit group.

“When there were no ships in port and if the Viet Cong weren’t attacking, there wasn’t very much for us to do,” Hebert says. So the men devised their own off-duty activities. Their all-in-good-fun behavior reminded me of college fraternity brothers. In a climax to Hebert’s year in Vietnam, treacherous weather challenged him as much as the VC did.

Readers should find it easy to identify with Hebert’s philosophy of service. Perhaps his point of view came from his father, “a career NCO who fought in the Pacific during World War II, then in Korea, and two tours of Vietnam.”

In the Vietnam War Mike Hebert more than lived up to his heritage.

Hebert’s website is michaelhebert-author.com

—Henry Zeybel

Lima-3 and the Mustang Grunt by Frank McCarthy

Lima-3 and the Mustang Grunt (FriesenPress, 300 pp. $35.99, hardcover; $17.53, paper; $8.99, Kindle) is a Marine Corps love story that chronicles Frank McCarthy’s military career through his medical evacuation after being twice wounded in the Vietnam War as a platoon leader in L Company of the 3^rd Battalion, 26^th Marine Regiment. McCarthy’s first tour with Lima-3 from late 1966 to early 1967 took place in in I Corps in Thua Thien Province (Hué, Phu Bai, Khe Sanh), which was among the most dangerous sections of the country.

McCarthy says that he began the book intending to write about himself for his descendants, but expanded it to focus on his young Marines. He researched battalion command chronologies, which didn’t always agree with his recollections of what happened.

It would have been helpful if he included footnotes, as well as an index, a timeline, and a glossary, even though McCarthy defines terms the first time they are used. That said, his unquestioning love of his men and the Marine Corps needed no references. His pride in the Corps is also evidenced by his favorable comparison of Marine Vietnam War combat statistics with those of the other services and even with those of the Marines during World War II.

Readers, including some Vietnam War veterans, will find some of McCarthy’s war stories jarring. That includes his account of the troop ship he came over on being hit with a devastating 80-hour typhoon. And the account of one of his men who had a leech crawl inside his penis with cringeworthy consequences. 

And the dehumanizing actions perpetrated on him during Parris Island boot camp, some of which would be subject to criminal prosecution now—or even then, if known. There also was the propensity of the new M-16 rifles to jam in combat, which cost many American lives in the war. And, of course, the horrible weather, fatigue, intense and sustained combat, ever-present booby traps, and the constant stress inflicted on McCarthy and his men, who averaged 18 years of age. 

That you can’t use insect repellent to deter the brigades of malaria-carrying, insanity-inflicting, persistently buzzing mosquitoes for fear that the enemy could smell it does not seem far fetched since McCarthy contends he could actually smell the enemy.

Frank McCarthy and his Marines in-country

I have two nitpicks. First, McCarthy refers three times to the Medal of Honor as the “Congressional Medal of Honor.” This is a common misconception because the MOH is presented by the President “in the name of the United States Congress,” but it is one a career Marine should not make, since it is a purely a military, not a congressional, award.

Secondly, McCarthy calls Vietnam civilians “the Indigenous population.” The use of that expression slightly diminishes those people because it omits their nationality. McCarthy clearly did not intend any disrespect and he indicates that his guilt for killing enemy troops persists to this day.

How can a decent man and a good Catholic who became a godfather to one of his sergeants at the latter’s conversion to Catholicism in Vietnam kill another human being (even in war) and not be affected?  The answer is, he cannot, even after being subject to dehumanizing treatment at Parris Island.         

–Harvey Weiner                         

The Last Vietnam Veteran by Joe Murphy

Joe Murphy’s The Last Vietnam Veteran (222 pp. $7.99, paperback; $4.99, Kindle) is a very readable, semiautobiographical novel centered on the diverse stories of the last living eleven (perhaps thirteen) Vietnam War veterans. Murphy tells his tale through the eyes of the narrator, who eventually becomes the last man standing. No spoiler alert is necessary since the reader is told who the sole survivor is at the beginning of the book.  

If you are a Vietnam War veteran, reading this novel will seem like listening to and relating to the war stories Murphy spins out as if you were at a VVA chapter meeting or sitting belly-up to a bar, without having to buy a round of beers. Readers who are not Vietnam War veterans can eavesdrop and wonder if these stories are true. As one of the characters says: “When the facts and the legend collide, go with the legend!”   

Some are Murphy’s vignettes are funny, some are implausible, but almost all are poignant. A few of the characters went to school with the narrator or lived in his hometown. However, most were from different units, different backgrounds, and served in the war at different times.

Several themes permeate the book. One is survivor’s guilt on many different levels. Another is the guilt rear echelons who did their jobs and went home felt since they were not in combat. Then there’s the guilt of those who were in combat but believed they should have done more. Finally, the guilt of those who never went to Vietnam while many of their compatriots did.

Another theme is the existence—and value—of Vietnam Veterans of America. Murphy, who joined the Army in 1966 and served in Vietnam with 64th Quartermaster Battalion at Long Binh, presents VVA as a forum where Vietnam War veterans help their fellow veterans and talk about their war experiences with men and women who are interested and will understand. The book is a great advertisement for VVA, which—among other things—helps preserve the national and personal memories of Vietnam War veterans’ sacrifices and stories.

The additional themes of nicotine addiction (unfiltered!), alcoholism (“Mr. Beer”), and PTSD and reoccur throughout the novel. The narrator, for example, has built a bunker in the garden of his house and keeps an extensive survivalist cache in his root cellar.

Joe Murphy

But it is survivor’s guilt that leads to his belief that “we owe” and “I did not do enough.” This accounts in part for the desire of almost all of the book’s characters to help other veterans. The narrator also reflects on how one year of a long life would dominate the remaining years of so many lives. 

The answer may be contained in the cliché that although a veteran may have left Vietnam, Vietnam has never left the veteran. That that experience, in other words, cannot be left behind.

As Murphy writes: When two Vietnam vets met, one of the most common questions they ask of each other is, “When were you there?”  Many a vet will pause… and reply “Last night.”

Murphy’s book posits the many reasons why this is so. Although legend, for many it is fact and it is why you should read this book.

His website is joemurphybooks.com/

–Harvey Weiner

The Road Ahead and Miles Behind by Mike Ligouri

The Road Ahead and Miles Behind: A Story of Healing and Redemption between Father and Son (Morgan James Publishing, 152 pp. $12.95, paper; $9.95, Kindle) is a book about a road trip taken by a two-tour Iraq War veteran and his father. Although neither is a Vietnam War veteran, the book’s messages are meaningful to all who served in uniform.

The two drove cross country in a van to attend the Sebring 12 Hours race in November 2020. Mike Ligouri and his father James were quite dysfunctional and close to estranged. James Ligouri had caused the divorce by cheating on Mike’s mother. This caused a lot of bitterness.

Plus, Mike and his dad had never connected. Mike felt that his father was never there for him. “It’s an awful thing to admit you dislike someone you love,” he writes.

His father was a race car fanatic and Mike was not interested. Suddenly, out of the blue, his father called him about accompanying him on his annual road trip to Florida to see the race. Mike decided to go, even though his father had a track record of letting him down.

The eleven-day trip allowed the two to mend fences and find common ground. Mike worried that all that time with his father would exacerbate their problems. That didn’t happen, and the good news is that the book is not about eleven days of silence—or yelling. The two ended up discussing a wide range of topics. God and the afterlife, for instance, which gets an entire chapter. The trip does not turn Mike into a racing fanatic, but it’s successful in bridging the gap between father and son.

Early in the book, you will start thinking of your father (or son) and by the end of it, you will be pondering a road trip with him. The book is not bittersweet. However, it could create bittersweet memories in its readers.

Although Mike is a war veteran and alludes to PTSD issues, his book is not about a troubled veteran dealing with his inner demons.

Mike and his dad have a fairly common relationship. Many will relate to being on a different wavelength than their father. “Our parents want what’s best for us,” Mike observes. “We want to discover on our own what’s best for us.”

The book has a few themes that will stick with you. “Life is not meant to be done alone,” for example, and “Life is a race anyway. Might as well run it.” Father and son buy matching t-shirts that read, “It’s all about the ride.” The book shows that a ride, if it’s hours with your dad (or mom), can totally change a parent-child relationship. 

Mike Liguori

I suppose that could be for the worse, but this book concentrates on the positives. If you take a similar trip, you may find that you are more like your father than you think or want to admit. 

The Road Ahead and Miles Behind is a book that I highly recommend if you have a less-than- ideal relationship with your father (or son). By asking why your fatther did things that had a negative impact on your life you may learn that he was sheltering you from things that were bothering him. 

In the case of Mike and James Liguori, it was job problems. If your father has died, you might find comfort in realizing that any coldness you felt may have been his way of sheltering you from the grim realities of life.   

–Kevin Hardy

The Erawan War, Volume 3: The Royal Lao Armed Forces 1961-1974 by Ken Conboy

The Erawan War, Volume 3: The Royal Lao Armed Forces 1961-1974 (Helion, 68 pp. $25, paper) by Ken Conboy departs from the two volumes that preceded it, which concentrated on the CIA’s clandestine operations in Laos from 1961-74. In this volume we learn about the different units that collectively comprised the Royal Lao Armed Forces in that time period.  

It very quickly becomes apparent that many of the units were also tools of the political factions vying for control of the country or functioning as regional centers of power. As a result, chain-of-command was often driven by allegiances and personal loyalties. Reading about the convoluted politics will make readers cynical about the war and question why the United States invested so much in this remote country and its military. 

It’s difficult in hindsight to believe that President Eisenhower, concerned about what was then called the Domino Theory, warned incoming President Kennedy in January 1961 about Laos, advising him that events there—rather than in South Vietna,—should have his full attention. 

Maj. Kong Le, a well-known personality in Laos in the early sixties (he was the cover of Time in 1964), and who at one point promoted himself to general, is highlighted in this volume. He was an important player in Lao politics and the military, and a highly competent commander of one of the best Lao units in the war—the 2nd Parachute Battalion.  

When not leading coups against the government, the nominally neutralist leader would switch sides when it suited him. At one point he joined with the communist Pathet Lao and the North Vietnamese and received military assitance from the Soviet Union. In the end, he became irrelevant and departed Laos.  

Kong Le was not alone in staging coups. Rightists were keen to overthrow Laos’ Geneva Accords-directed coalition government and pursued that end through repeated coups. Because political allegiances were the driving factor in the Lao military you have to pay close attention when reading this book to follow who was doing what to whom at any given time.

Only when the war ended in 1975 and the communists took total and vindictive control did it become clear how tragic it was that the Lao military failed to unify and focus its energies on defeating the true enemy.

The book’s title, Erawan, is a mythological three-headed elephant common in Thai, Lao, and Khmer culture. It prominently appeared in the center of the red Lao national flag that was used until the end of the war.

This concise book is rich in photographs and illustrations. Careful reading will reveal the tragedy that befell Laos despite all the aid that the United States provided. From that perspective it is an important read.

–John Cirafici