If you want to understand how the US lost the Vietnam War, this is the book that best grasped it for me. There is so much emotive history around the Vietnam War, but Stanton really takes it on in a military history, looking at the battalion deployments and operations, and the wider Army context. Seeing the dynamics between the Vietnam troop deployments and losses, the maintenance of the German occupation force (primarily to counter Soviet forces in Europe) and ultimately the "home front" requirements, it really brought home to me how the US (and allies) were militarily beaten in South Vietnam.

This is the book that should have been read before the Iraq deployment, because it created the same sorts of problems, though it ended differently there. In terms of thoughtful historical appreciation of what is still recent history, I give this one 5 stars. ( )