I had been married for only three months when I went to Vietnam. Peggy, who was my wife then, had lost her husband two years earlier. He was in the Training Team, AATTV, and was killed in an ambush on their son’s third birthday. She didn’t lose me, but she came close.

…The American unit that I’d worked with closely gave me a farewell party the day before I flew out of Vietnam. I had tears in my eyes. I didn’t want to go home. In hindsight, the war was a great waste of life and money, but I wouldn’t have missed it for quids.