...and a hard rain fell: A GI's True Story of the War in Vietnam (repost)

This is an enjoyable book which tracks Johns time in Vietnam and Thailand. For me, the most enjoyable part of the book is the disenfranchisement of his troops.
From living in hootches where Lieutenants wipe their white gloves over sandbags covered in rat faeces and protest to the 'grunts' to commanders who tell their troops to polish anything shiny and then disappear into their tents for weeks on end. Sure, there are a lot of prostitutes, an amusing encounter with the north vietnamese army while smoking opiated grass but it is never sordid.

In fact the way the eastern girls took great pains to make the soldiers lives bearable is commendable. John may be a back line troop but this probably contributes heavily to the sheer horror he feels when he does witness deaths - not having become desensitized by witnessing too many. At the end of 365 days, John chooses to volunteer for Thailand rather than return to america to bayonet protesters. Initially distrustful of Thais he begins his slow recuperation. At the end of his service he takes the 'Freedom Bird' home and is wracked with anxiety about how America will receive him. All in all a rounded account of a grunt's war which contrasts starkly with the expected accounts from vainglorious, high-ranking generals. Well worth reading.