ANNALS OF VIETNAM

Muc Wa: the e-book

Incident at Muc Wa: a novel of war in Southeast Asia is now available in digital format for a third of the paperback price. My own preference is $3.99 PDF file that can be read on any computer. (PayPal rolls your credit card; I send the file by email.) Other options: get it in Kindle format for Amazon's dedicated e-book reader (which, with the right app, also works on the Apple iPhone or Touch, or indeed on any Windows PC). Or in a Smashwords edition for almost any computer, PDA, or e-book reader.

Could an idea from Vietnam work in Afghanistan?

In Vietnam, just a few miles from the massacre site at My Lai 4, the US Marines developed an approach to counter-insurgency that John Boyd might have applauded: the Combined Action Platoon. In my master's dissertation for King's College London, I explore Boyd's thinking and how it might be applied to the War on Terror: Let the Americans Live in the Village: How would John Boyd have dealt with Osama bin Laden?. It's presently available in the Kindle format, and I'm working on other editions.

An American living in the village

If you wonder whether Americans are up to the challenge of living 'in the village', read this fascinating account of Wes Hoch, a US Navy officer from the state of Maine, who was advisor to the Vietnamese 'junk fleet' on Phu Quoc Island in the Gulf of Thailand. I met him briefly in Saigon in the summer of 1964 and, as always, I asked him how he would go about winning the war. "Burn every US compound in the country," he replied without missing a beat. He's gone now, but his brother has completed the work of publishing his book, Dai Uy Hoch, now available on Amazon.com. (Pronounced die-wee, the honorific means "captain" in Vietnamese.) Blue skies! -- Dan Ford