Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is a extraordinarily powerful, interesting and well written book. It covers the entire history (1965-date) of an obscure (to some) chapter in America's war in Southeast Asia -- the loss of Lima Site 85 in Laos to communist attack. The whole history is fascinating -- from the decision to set up this site, to what it (briefly) did, the decisions from the squad level all the way up to the US Embassy in Vientiane and the President in Washington about its mission, operation and defense, to the current efforts to get the truth out of the Lao and Vietnamese governments about MIAs. The author has the background to write this fascinating history and writes compellingly. He's not afraid, where appropriate, to use blunt language like "shameful toadying" and "fraud". I've been a sceptic in the past of some of the distrust of the US government shown by POW/MIA families and partisans, but this book opened my eyes. Phou Pha Thi should have been better defended or abandoned earlier. A great account of (mostly) good intentions and (too often) flawed execution. The author writes convincingly of 1960's combat and 1990's political maneuvering. The treatment of COL Clayton, the commander of the site when it was overrun, by the current "investigators" was particularly revealing and chilling. I was a US Army Signal Corps officer during the Vietnam war and know all too well what it's like to have to be visible on a mountaintop to perform your mission and the need for good defense. I've spent the last 4 years as a civilian in Cambodia. So I have some parallels with the authors' experiences. A great book no matter what your view on the war.
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