If the costs of the Vietnam War were great to Americans and 
staggering to the South Vietnamese, they were even worse for the 
North. And those costs were borne largely by the individual 
soldiers—the soldiers who won the war.

    Based on interviews, soldiers' diaries, letters, and government 
documents, this book, first published in 1992, gives a classic, 
soldier's-eye account of the war our opponents fought and the men 
who fought it.

_________________________________________________________

MICHAEL LEE LANNING, a retired lieutenant colonel who served 
in Vietnam, is the author of sixteen nonfiction books on military 
history. Texas A&M University Press has reissued two of them, The 
Only War We Had: A Platoon Leader's Journal of Vietnam and 
Vietnam, 1969–1970: A Company Commander's Journal. He lives in 
Crystal Beach, Texas. DAN CRAGG enlisted in the army in 1958 
and served five years in Vietnam. He is the author or co-author of 
more than a dozen military books, fiction and nonfiction. He lives in 
Prince George's County, Maryland.


Number 122: Texas A&M University Military History Series



What people are saying about this book

" . . . blends history, eyewitness accounts, and data from a RAND 
Corporation study and other military sources to draw an intimate, 
candid portrait of the Viet Cong/North Vietnamese Army that is 
unexpected and often startling. . . . An absolute necessity for 
Vietnamese studies collections and a revealing document for anyone 
connected with this conflict."—Library Journal

" . . . one of the few [books] that objectively focuses upon how the 
dedicated, tenacious and supremely resourceful soldiers of North 
Vietnam fought a vastly superior, technologically advanced enemy—
and won."—San Francisco Chronicle

" . . . a unique portrait. . . . Impeccably researched, unbiased, and 
revealing."—Kirkus Reviews

"Accessible to the general reader but usable by the serious scholar, . . . 
belongs in virtually any collection on the war."—Booklist