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acknowledgments Not long after I started teaching at the University of Massachusetts Boston, Linda Gordon and others on the editorial board of Radical America called my attention to a collection of interviews with “Viet Cong” defectors and prisoners of war, which the Rand Corporation had just released to the public. I wrote an essay for Radical America and then an article for Past & Present on the National Liberation Front in My Tho province, all the while thinking that these fascinating materials deserved a more extended treatment. In the following years, while turning to other scholarly tasks, I continued to think about them, and in 1997 I started over again with the first of the interviews in the My Tho series and began to write this book. The history of Vietnam’s Southern Revolution is therefore entwined with all the projects and relations of my working life. The idealism, intellectual seriousness , and love of teaching among colleagues at UMass Boston and especially among Column comrades gave me a community and a sense of direction that has lasted to the present. In the History Department, I especially want to thank Esther Kingston-Mann, the most imaginative and intrepid scholar to come out of “peasant studies,” Woody Smith, a learned and generous colleague , and Maureen Dwyer, who when problems arise invariably knows what to do to solve them. Most of all, I am grateful to UMB students, by now thousands of them, who have taken my classes. I have been moved and enlightened by their striving for an education and a better life. In 1985 John McAuliff’s invitation to join an educator’s delegation to Vietnam set in motion a chain of events that shaped the rest of my professional and personal life. In the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences , Kevin Bowen, Larry Heinemann, and Bruce Weigl shared their poems and stories with me and helped me think in a deeper way about the Vietnamese . Informants who know more about Vietnam than I do, and especially Ngo Vinh Long, Nguyen Ba Chung, Nguyen Duc Chinh, Hue-Tam Ho Tai, and William Turley, have patiently answered my questions and saved me from many errors. Among the people I count on are Bill Beik, my compagnon de route going back to Sacramento Place; Jim Dittmar, Milt Kotelchuck, Dick Lourie, Mark Pawlak, and Peter Weiler (and Ron Schreiber, RIP) from the oldest men’s group on the east coast; Pam Annas, Linda Dittmar and Jack Spence, for many acts of friendship in time of need; and Marilyn Young, respected and loved, and not just by me, for keeping the faith and for her principled scholarship. x acknowledgments Bill Beik and Peter Weiler have read and commented on just about everything I have written, and this book is no exception. Chris Appy, Mark Bradley, Woody Smith, and William Turley provided a close and helpful critique of the entire manuscript, and drafts of chapters were scrutinized by David Biggs, Dick Cluster, Clark Dougan, Jim Green, Jim Hunt, Esther Kingston-Mann, Rochelle Ruthchild, Tim Sieber, Steve Silliman, Malcolm Smuts, Philip Taylor , Paul Wright, Weili Ye, Katherine Yih, and Marilyn Young. They spotted all the flaws, as I knew they would. At UMass Press, Paul Wright encouraged me through the years, and so did Clark Dougan, an editor who also happens to be an accomplished historian; Amanda Heller and Mary Bellino worked hard to improve what I had written, Carol Betsch saw the project through, and Kate Blackmer did the maps and taught me a lot about map making. Stephen Denney helped me find clean copies of many interviews in the DT series. People in the know were impressed and I was delighted when Jim O’Brien, whose reputation on this and other fronts is exemplary, agreed to do the index. My parents, Freda and Jim Hunt, are gone, but the memory of their devotion continues to give me strength, as does the constant support of Miriam Hunt, with her passion for books, Jean Hunt, the anchor of our family, and Mas Nakawatase, the brother I gained in 1971. From the beginning, my son Jim has been there right beside me, full of hope and courage as we made our way through many an adventure. So has my daughter Mai Jean, whose loving heart and radiant presence are a joy and inspiration. I keep trying to find the words to say all there is to say about Thuy Hunt, who cares for me...

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