Beverly Deepe Keever describes what it was like for a farm girl from Nebraska to find herself halfway around the world, trying to make sense of one of the nation's bloodiest and bitterest wars. These memoirs, at once personal and panoramic, chronicle the horrors of war and a rise and decline of American power and prestige.

Introduction : from midwest dustbowl to mystical Vietnam -- The people's war -- Rice-roots reporting -- "The world's first helicopter war" -- The rise and fall of frontier forts -- Two ill-fated presidents -- "The United States will lose Southeast Asia" -- Americanizing the war -- Her story as history too -- "Destroy the town to save it" -- From Khe Sanh to the "virtual equivalent of treason" -- Two "darling spies" and I -- Appendix 1 : author's Vietnam articles in U.S. publications -- Appendix 2 : author's 1966 New York herald tribune series (inserted into the Congressional record by Senator Mike Mansfield).