When i first walked across the tarmac of saigon’s tansonnhut airport on a warm evening in april, 1962, nervous that the customs officers might not accept the journalist’s visa i had hurriedly obtained from the south vietnamese consulate in hong kong, i believed in what my country was doing in vietnam. with military and economic aid and a few thousand pilots and army advisers, the united states was attempting to the non-communist vietnamese build a viable and independent nation-state and defeat a communist guerilla insurgency that would subject them to a dour tyranny. what is the author’s connection to the social and political issues of his day? he is a united states soldier who embraces the opportunity to fight and defeat communist forces in vietnam. he is a united states soldier who is attempting to deceive the vietnamese customs officials. he is a journalist who believes in the united states government’s intentions in vietnam. he is a journalist who believes the united states government should offer greater aid to countries suffering from tyranny.