From a covert 1945 OSS mission to enlist the aid of Ho Chi Minh against the Japanese to the frenzied evacuation of Saigon in 1975, this book gathers the narratives of over sixty U.S. citizens--medics, diplomats, clerks, housewives, spies, grunts, and generals--who lived, worked, and fought in Southeast Asia during America's thirty-year involvement in Vietnam. The result is a work of visceral immediacy and tragic sweep.