It was heartening to learn of Bill McCloud and his successful efforts to obtain comments from a broad spectrum of leaders and decision makers of the Vietnam era. Personal reminiscences play an important role in our understanding of past events; our Civil War produced an abundance of such writings. But scholars are well aware of how selective and biased memories can be. Although much has been written about Vietnam, it is early yet for serious writers to have advanced much beyond the level of popular history. True scholarly research and writing must await a later generation; perhaps someone from Bill McCloud’s class.