American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity

I can't recommend this book highly enough. I knew most of what Appy writes about, and lived some of it, but he brings it all back and with a clarity and coherence that connected everything and that re-awakened my frustration and outrage, not only about the terrible damage that has been the result of our wars and the policies that created them, but also at the obscene revision of history that enables us to continue on the same path. After years of witnessing all the successful efforts that have shoved the reality of the Vietnam war and its true victims into comfortable, enabling myths, I often find myself retreating into a protective and cynical numbness. American Reckoning cracked that shell, and for that I thank Appy.