Vietnam is a country built by wars so much that wars are in the blood of the Vietnamese. They live in wars, with wars, and by wars. It seems that no Vietnamese generation has been immune to wars for the last two millennia. Without wars, Vietnam would have been enslaved by foreigners. Without wars, it would not have been a free country. Wars, however, are destructive and people eventually lose something when they get involved in them, winners included.
The Vietnamese are persistent fighters. If independence is a factor, freedom and human rights remain the main reasons for their struggles. As long as these rights are not respected, they would continue to fight until that goal is reached.
The Americans not only did not understand themselves, they also failed to understand their ally, the South Vietnamese. An analysis of the factors that led to the misunderstanding between the two parties allows the reader to understand the failure of their common objective.
The purpose of this book is to retrace the path of the South Vietnamese in history, and throughout the Vietnam War, and to redefine the nature of South Vietnamese nationalism.