A few words about our methodology and choice of subjects. Both Marvin J. Wolf and Joseph L. Galloway, but especially Galloway, have a wide circle of friends and acquaintances who are Vietnam veterans. We approached most of these people, in some cases to interview them, but more often in search of others who might be suitable. We also looked for suitable subjects on the internet. A surprising number of those we approached declined to be interviewed. Our goal was to find forty to fifty men and women of every race and ethnicity who had served in Vietnam in each of the armed forces or as civilians and in some way had distinguished themselves, especially in their postwar lives. From the start, we also intended to include Vietnamese refugees who have made outstanding contributions to the nation.
Our goal was a group that represented the 2.7 million Americans who served in Vietnam. Readers will have to decide for themselves how close we came to that representative sample. It was an imperfect process, and we suspect some will find fault with it. If so, we are to blame and no one else.
We were unable to find suitable men or women who had served in every Vietnam environment. Probably because US troop strength in Vietnam peaked in 1968 and rapidly declined thereafter, nearly all the veterans we spoke with had served in Vietnam before 1971.