Drawing on a range of sources, including original interviews with the commanders ordered to fight a land war in Southeast Asia, former U.S. Army infantry officer recounts his experiences in Vietnam as a company commander and as a battalion- and division-level operations officer carrying out those orders. The crucial flaws of the Johnson Administration’s strategy of attrition are analyzed–the failure to seal off the theater of battle from Chinese and Soviet resupply, and allowing North Vietnamese forces to maintain sanctuaries in Laos, Cambodia and even North Vietnam.