A Vietnam slide show (5)

"Incident at Muc Wa"

The next day I went out on a helicopter, and a month later I was home in New Hampshire, playing games of makebelieve. What if we'd been told to garrison Tan Hoa, instead of merely evacuating its residents? I wrote the story as Incident at Muc Wa. (Imagine a Yankee pronouncing "muck war" and you'll get the idea.) It was published in 1967. One reader was the screenwriter Wendell Mayes, who optioned the movie rights to the story. He wrote a script, titled it Go Tell the Spartans, and spent years finding somebody willing to take a chance on it.

The U.S. Army didn't help, either. It wanted the "Raiders" changed to MAAG soldiers, which Mayes did. But in the end the movie was made without the usual loan of military equipment and personnel, except for one officer who liked the script so much that he volunteered to help in his free time.

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