Into Cambodia
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4.4 • 17 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A vivid account of the 1970 springtime campaigns of the U.S. Army in South Vietnam along the Cambodia border, told from the soldier’s perspective with detailed battlefield tales
“Most of us remember [the 1970 Cambodian campaign] for the killings of four young people at Kent State. [Keith] Nolan wants us to remember that it killed a lot of young Americans in Cambodia as well.”—The Capital Times
“This is combat narrative at its best. Nolan has mastered the soldier’s slang and weaves it expertly into the account. . . . A compelling read, and a valuable addition to the growing body of Vietnam literature.”—Military Review
“Lives up to the high standards of his previous books. Nolan dives deeply into his subjects by getting his hands on first-person testimony primarily through interviews with those who took part in the fighting.”—The Veteran
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Based on interviews, letters and diaries, this fourth book by Nolan ( The Battle for Hue ) on the war in Vietnam gives a vivid account of the U.S. Army's role in the 1970 attack on Cambodia, disregarding, with good reason, involvement of South Vietnamese forces in the mission: although the ARVN inflicted more casualties against the North Vietnamese and Vietcong than did American troops, no records evidently exist of their wartime operations. Despite many examples in these pages of exemplary leadership and sacrifice, the author's chief feat is to depict candidly the progressive demoralization of Americans during the campaign. He deals with painful realities that, he argues, divided the ranks: the GI drug problem and influence of the Black Power movement on the army; conflicts between sometimes reluctant draftees and stalwart ``career'' personnel; and the issue of ``combat refusal.'' Nolan does not skimp on details of military action, all of it taking place during a phase of the war when the principal goal for soldiers, as he sees it, was survival--not destruction of the enemy--and concludes that the two-month campaign was a tactical success of limited value to the war as a whole.
Customer Reviews
Interesting and detailed
A meticulously researched and well laid out work of history. Too bad the US was already dedicated to withdrawal from Vietnam, and its so sad lives were wasted in a war that could have been won- possibly at the cost of Ww3- or at least could have been managed better. Vietnam set the stage for all the following limited wars that seemed to accomplish little except death and destruction.
Always awed at courage of the US soldier!
Cambodia operation. About 3 years to late in the Vietnam War.
Very well documented account of the attempt to disrupt the supply chain from North Vietnam via Laos & Cambodia which gave the enemy a huge storehouse of equipment & supplies used to wage war against South Vietnam.