Vietnam: A word that few Americans had ever heard before the early 1960s, and a place that even fewer would have been able to point out on a map, slowly but inexorably becomes the primary focus of national attention as America’s intervention in the war ultimately emerges as the defining event of the Baby Boomer generation. The national turbulence generated by the conflict between those opposing and supporting the war soon begins to act as a catalyst for heated and sometimes violent confrontations over a host of other issues, such as racial and sexual equality, as the nation finds itself embroiled in an era of discord and tumult that would have been unimaginable during the relatively staid Eisenhower years. The Tet Offensive brings the conflict to a turning point but the carnage continues to drag on for years, while the military draft makes the issue of the war an excruciatingly personal and unavoidable one for millions of the author’s generation. After struggling through a crisis of conscience and experiencing the joys of an unexpected first love, he finds himself separated from his new fiancé and shipping out to the war zone as a soldier.
