These are the stories Vietnam vets tell over beers at Legion halls and VFW posts—stories of young men tangled up in the chaos of landing zones and nameless jungle hills, in the boredom of base camps, in the confusion of a controversial war. Raw, often gut-wrenching, sometimes funny, these war stories describe slices of individual tours of duty, from the firefights to the friendships, and capture the kaleidoscope of the American experience in Vietnam.