RODUCTION<br >Lies all going on at the same time in what was<br >very large war in a rather small country. Each<br >vas there generally knew a good bit about his<br >: piece of the puzzle， had some general notion<br >was going on in adjacent parts， and knew very<br >everything else. It was a stock saying and a<br >he more time you had in-country， the less you<br >p come up with sweeping generalities about the<br >Less. As Chief， SOG， I had little official con-<br >De whole complex structure of Regional and<br >ce troops， police， civil administration， public<br >t the South Vietnamese called "political war-<br >o on， that was fighting the small-scale， anti-<br >r in the hamlets and rice paddies. It has since<br >attention that， with the exception of the not very<br >~ .r of American Officers and NCOs who were<br >ess， extremely few other Americans who served<br >to say nothing of the general public， have any<br >f what was involved in the subsector business.<br >gs like the fact that the Republic of Vietnam<br >1 into 44 Provinces， which were also military<br >1 further into about 250 districts， which were<br >~ subsectors， much less what really went on.<br > ， no doubt， there will be a thorough， detailed and<br >analytical history of the whole "civil-military<br > based on official records and MACV s com-<br >atistics. Meanwhile， if you re interested in what<br >a remote， insecure， backcountry district， where<br >troops on our side didn t have steel helmets or<br >:le launchers---not only the battles， but the internal<br >clashes of personality， the love affairs， the odd<br >Jid happen， and..， well， read McColl s book.<br >of the better adventure stories since Ian Fleming.<br >AUTHOR S PREFACE<br >Valley of Peril is the story of what happened to and around<br >me as a District/Subsector Senior Adviser in Vietnam in<br >1967 and 1968. I will not certify that each of these epi-<br >sodes actually happened to me personally， or exactly in the<br >form stated， but they all happened， if not to me， to people<br >whom I know. In some cases parts of several similar<br >episodes have been consolidated to make a better story.<br >There seems to be no way to portray the boredom and<br >repetitiousness of our lives without being boring and repe-<br >titious. Names of people，<br >~~，en changed to protect the<br >places， and military units have<br >innocent--and also the rest of us.<br > The war as seen by politicians， reporters， historians and<br >bureaucrats in Washington and Saigon was not quite the<br >same war as seen at the working level. Even within the<br >Army， with the exception of those directly involved， what<br >went on with the Districts and Subsectors， and the Re-<br >gional Force and the Popular Force， was very little under-<br >stood. Likewise， the working-level advisers with Vietnamese<br >units and entities went their way unnoticed and unre-<br >corded. No doubt one of these years some careful and hard-<br >working researcher will write a detailed and factual history<br >of the whole civil-military advisory effort， based on the<br >mass of facts and statistics which were reported， collated， ad-<br >justed and filed at the various levels of command. Meanwhile，<br >this is a collection of snapshots<br >on， at least in one comer of the<br >of what was really going<br >war. I have tried to avoid<br ><br >