Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam

No one can understand the complete tragedy of the American experience in Vietnam without reading this book. Nothing so underscores the ambivalence and confusion of the American commitment as does the composition of our fighting forces. The rich and the powerful may have supported the war initially, but they contributed little of themselves. That responsibility fell to the poor and the working class of America.--Senator George McGovern

"Reminds us of the disturbing truth that some 80 percent of the 2.5 million enlisted men who served in Vietnam--out of 27 million men who reached draft age during the war--came from working-class and impoverished backgrounds. . . . Deals especially well with the apparent paradox that the working-class soldiers' families back home mainly opposed the antiwar movement, and for that matter so with few exceptions did the soldiers themselves.--New York Times Book Review

"[Appy's] treatment of the subject makes it clear to his readers--almost as clear as it became for the soldiers in Vietnam--that class remains the tragic dividing wall between Americans.--Boston Globe

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• Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam
• Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class
• What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France
• The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America, Revised Edition
• Homeward Bound: American Families In The Cold War Era
• America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975
• Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America (War/Society/Culture)