Introduction
This book is a true story, based on a diary that I kept while serving as a combat advisor to the South Vietnamese Army in 1969. I have made every effort to preserve the exact truthfulness and accuracy of the circumstances, locations and situations as they occurred. This was possible through my original diary entries, information contained in letters I sent home, in preserved combat topographical map coordinates and in over 500 photos in my possession.
Most conversations in this memoir are, out of necessity, based on recollection. But to the best of my ability, I know you will be able to capture the moment.
Other factual information was obtained through declassified United States Army files and previously published works as endnoted, as well as a personal interview with my former commander, Colonel Bill Stanberry, conversations with Helen Emery, and the much-appreciated input from my wife, Carolyn (Zgutowicz) Amon, who accompanied me to Hóa Quản Village on my return trip to Vietnam.
The book is formatted with short and dated italicized diary entries, followed by my narration in regular text. Occasional endnotes, located in the back of the book, are presented as numbered superscript next to text referenced, as on page nine, for example: “nearly half the entire number of Americans killed during the fifteen-year period of the Vietnam War.”1
You will also occasionally notice a small superscript letter like this one on page fifty-four: Heard gunfire about a half mile away, near the pagoda.C The small letters refer to actual locations on the two topographical combat maps shown below:
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