As a career Marine since the age of seventeen, Fred L. 
Edwards, Jr., felt a great gulf when he was passed over 
repeatedly for service in the front lines of Korea. 
Finally, in 1966, he had his chance to bridge that gulf 
by serving as an intelligence officer in Vietnam. He 
traveled regularly from Saigon to the Mekong Delta, to 
the Central Highlands, to the DMZ, and more. His mission 
gave him a prime opportunity to see the war as it was 
fought in the cities and in the countryside. His boss told 
him:


"Visit every major ground unit in the country. Go to Special 
Forces camps, ground reconnaissance units, armored cavalry 
units, and waterborne reconnaissance units. Search everywhere 
for intelligence sources-long range patrols, boats, electronic
surveillance, and agent operations. Don't get bogged down by
dog-and-pony shows staged for colonels and generals. When I 
want special info, go get it and get back with it."


What he saw not only gave him the ribbons of a combat veteran; 
it taught him a lesson about war, about soldiery, and about life. 
"In Vietnam I saw men sucked into an abstract pull of war, 
because the rules had changed. . . . I learned that, once 
committed to war and combat, most men become heroes. . . . 
Finally, I knew that I had acquired a solemn, awesome obligation 
to all those who died. I was compelled to focus my remaining 
life upward, the way they might have done had they been given 
the chance."


This book is built around Edwards's journals, sent home during 
his first tour in Vietnam in 1966-67. His own meticulous 
research fits his individual experiences into a larger context, 
through postscripts, extensive notes, and a thorough historical
chronology. The book is formatted so that the reader can move 
easily between the events in Vietnam in 1967–68 and the broader 
context as revealed through later research. The reader can thus 
move between Edwards's personal experiences in Vietnam and the 
larger historical forces that sent him there. As a piece of the 
puzzle of Vietnam, this book holds great significance to those 
who were there and for students of that war.


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FRED L. EDWARDS, Jr., culminated a thirty-year Marine Corps 
career as a lieutenant colonel. After the events narrated in 
this book, he returned to Vietnam in 1973 before retiring from 
the Marines in 1979. He then began a second career as a 
businessman and writing consultant. Edwards lives in South 
Pasadena, Florida, where he continues to write about sailing.