The Fear of the Enemy

The average American soldier going into battle in Vietnam carried a whole pack full of fear, mainly because he wasn't trained properly back in the States. The typical kid who went to Vietnam was black; 21% of all soldiers were black. If you went to a good university like Brown University or something, you didn't find yourself carrying an M16 rifle in Vietnam. You did a Clinton. And this is something that SLA Marshall talked about in Men Against Fire. Once they were provided with the leadership, the proper leadership, that raw material did a hell of a job, but it didn't make the fear go away.