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Judge Dane writes a entralling story about the last years of the Vietnam War as seen through the eyes of a JAG officer. His courtroom scenes and depiction of military politics read as real as possible. All the distinctions - officers/grunts - career/draftee - white/black - combat/backup - add to the tension and conflict. He puts forth a convincing hypothesis about why we lost the war. Once realized, the hypothesis seems obvious and one further realizes that the same element echoes through American society today - still causing lost lives. The Judge is to be complimented on his rendition and understanding.

The author presents a JAG (Judge Advocate General) lawyer who represents soldiers accused of murder and drug offenses. And the censors are not allowed to lessen the brutal telling of the pitfalls.

This book brings the reader into the fray, allowing him to feel, taste, touch and react to military life in Viet Nam. Using the experiences of a non-career Army lawyer assigned during the last days of duty in Viet Nam, we discover that the justice served in the military is a fight in itself.

At times that legal battle is influenced by high command input not necessarily beneficial to the lawyer's role or to the meting out of justice to the defendant.

We follow the lawyer protagonist's fight his personal battle of bafflement and anger towards his immediate superior whose sole ambition is to promote himself. Thoughts of killing enter the lawyer's mind. This mind frame is grown out of the futility felt due to Generals doing the opposite of the facts published to the American public. "I fight to stop a moron poising as an Army officer from screwing up the life of a soldier."

This moving book guides us through the daily experiences faced by the "grunts" which, of necessity, become the foundation of the ordeal of the defense counsel. Fortunately, where he finds innocence of the purported crime, our lawyer battles through the layers of military law to bring about a "not guilty" decision.

This is a must read story of the little known area of the conflict in Viet Nam.

I was a civilian working for USO in Vietnam during the same time that Dan Dane was there as a JAG officer. Dane's outstanding book is sharply honest, sharply funny, sharply sad, and entirely engrossing, acutely tuned to the way things really were. If readers are curious as to why Americans are still imprisoned, to one extent or another, by the Vietnam War, Dane's book will provide some valuable answers.
Diana J. Dell, author, A Saigon Party: And Other Vietnam War Short Stories

Dan Dane shines a bright light on another cost of the "American War" as the Vietnamese call it. Judge Dan tells the story of how Americans destroyed Americans in the name of orders and government policy. If you want to know how Saigon Warriors, class warfare, and drug use destroyed an army, this book tells it all.