Early days in Vietnam

In May 1964, I took the publisher's advance on my first book, added $26, and bought a ticket to Saigon. I kept a journal of my three months in South Vietnam, hoping to publish the dispatches on my return. Alas, Lyndon Johnson decided to escalate the war, so the conflict by August was far different from the one I'd investigated in my old fatigues, a tiger-stripe bush hat sewn up for me by a Saigon tailor, boots from L.L. Bean, and field gear bought on the black market. So I used the experience instead to write Incident at Muc Wa, later filmed as Go Tell the Spartans with Burt Lancaster starring. (He also contributed $150,000 when the producers went broke.)

Years later, I got out that old typescript and found it a fascinating snapshot of insurgency in its early stages, when there was still a chance of containing it. (Is there ever a chance of containing revolution?) So I published it as The Only War We've Got. More recently, I touched up the digital edition and lowered the price to $3.99. If you have a Kindle device, or are willing to download a bit of software for your computer or smartphone. it's worth a read. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford