To Vietnam in Vain: Memoir of an Irish-American Intelligence Advisor, 1969-1970

American military advisors in South Vietnam came to know their allies personally--as few American soldiers could. In addition to fighting the Viet Cong, advisors engaged in community building projects and local government initiatives. They dealt firsthand with corrupt American and South Vietnamese bureaucracies. Not many advisors would have been surprised to learn that 105mm artillery shells were being sold on the black market to the Viet Cong. Not many were surprised by the North Vietnamese victory in 1975. This memoir of a U.S. Army intelligence officer focuses on the province advisors who worked with local militias that were often disparaged by American units. The author describes his year (1969-1970) as a U.S. advisor to the South Vietnamese Regional and Popular Forces in the Mekong Delta.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Acknowledgments Preface Preamble Introduction Progress Oplan Missouri: Harry’s Funeral Pacification Winning History Lesson Tet ’68: We Won The Man Who Wore a Tux to War The Books and the Movies Models for Irish Youth Tammany’s Heirs Saint John Fitzgerald Kennedy Telling What Happened Nostalgia Who’s Fightin’ Here? A Servant of the Crown The IRA and Clan Hagan A Deal We Can Refuse Sun Worship World War II and Being Irish I’d Rather Fight in Dungannon The POW Charade Cowardice The Boy Scouts and ­High-Mindedness RFK in Absentia My Sainted Mother Jim Carroll, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and the Other Guys The VC Shoot Too Eating Jelly Donuts The Smell of Pink Plexiglass Courage? No Choice The Calendar and Sex Careerism Goalless War And Two Years Later… Central Intelligence Buttoned Up and the Catholic Cabal Local Truces and the Killing of John Goggin Faking Ourselves The M-16: Success in the Laboratory No Lights in the Fog Food Poisoning on Firefly and Senator Javits Futility Blushing and 105mm Rounds for Sale How I Learned the Thousand Yard Stare The American Black and Tans The Phong Dinh Daily Mayhem This Can’t be Happening Buy Bonds or Else… The Kaiser: An Irish Hero The Phoenix Program The Wannabes Shoot First; Reform Later Ga-Ga about Gadgets The Epic of Lieutenant Kennedy A Prayer for the Kids of Cooper Street Appendix: Correspondence with Congressmen William F. Ryan, 1970 Glossary Notes Index

About the Author :
Edward A. Hagan, the son of Irish immigrants, served as a U.S. Army intelligence officer in Vietnam. He is Connecticut State University Distinguished Professor of Writing at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury and is the author of numerous books and articles on war literature and on Irish literature. He lives in Brewster New York.

Review :
“represents a significant contribution to both the memory of the Vietnam War and the collective understanding of the conflict at the province level..indispensable”—H-Net Reviews; “a powerful and thoughtful memoir of a soldier in combat”—On Point; “Edward Hagan is an influential voice in the study of Irish and Irish-American. Hagan explores the collateral damage to not only the narrative arc of his life, but also the impact on the Irish-American consciousness. His memoir augments the Vietnam War literature canon and advances our understanding of conflict and unpacks the Irish-American struggle to balance a resonate obligation to fight for America while also maintaining an allegiance to Irish anti-imperialist, revolutionary roots. Hagan succeeds not only in generating disorientation through narrative fragmentation and structure, but he also generates realism through discontinuity and irony-filled experiences with the unexpected. He creates a memoir with the cutting edge of a work of satire. As a result, we see the cultural and moral eddies that continue to ensnare all of us”—War, Literature & The Arts.