Customer Reviews

U.S. Army Uniforms of the Vietnam War

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I found this book to be extremely useful when it comes to needing to know what soldiers wore during the war. The explanations and many photos in each section make it easy to understand who wore what in Vietnam.

This book was like pulling my old army uniforms out from a duffle bag of memories. Using only black & white photos and line drawings to illustrate the volume, the author still successfully describes the variety of Army uniforms of the Vietnam era. Some data could have been presented in tabular form to avoid a lot of verbiage. The safety/work clothing & related equipment are very loosely definable as a uniform clothing item of a combat, fatigue or service dress nature and could have been easily omitted. The listing of items by proper nomenclature was also very helpful. A real surprise for me was to see two in-country photos of two drill sergeants from my basic training company used to illustrate the tropical hot weather (boonie) hat and the tropical rucksack. Some color would have been nice but there are other publications that complement this book.

This is a book that will stand forever. Stanton was a serving officer in Vietnam and when he did his research he had access to the working files at the Army's Natick Laboratory in Masachusetts to consult. He has used all the specifications and drawings that were published. In combination with his work on the Cold War which covers clothing worn elsewhere in the world this period is thoroughly covered. His complete ouevre includes WW II, Korea, Cold War, and Vietnam. I wish he would continue with the Modern Volunteer Army from 1975 on. Bit sparse on field equipment but then this is a uniform study.

I am trying to collect a good representation of the average soldier in Vietnam. This book has help greatly in see the uniform and equipment used. There are lots of picture and great descriptions. The book is well organized and very useful in my search.