Lane also records testimony that charges four American soldiers with killing 19 in one village; many of those questioned refer to a shadowy acquaintance with numerous versions of My Lai.

There is some perverted justice in the spiritual vacuum in which our troops live: American soldiers since 1968, as indicated in this book, have been contributing to bounties on the heads of commanding officers who continue to make vigorous attempts to seek out enemy forces.

THE interviews appear authentic-although many of those who agreed to talk were deserters, more than half have received multiple decorations and have returned to the United States. For some of these men, their testimony takes the form of a confessional, and a few risk prosecution by the Army because they are still in the reserves. Horrified by the manuscript submitted to them, the editors at Simon and Schuster required Lane to provide documentary evidence for the statements before they would handle Conversations with Americans.

Apparently they got it, and Lane asserts that the material is available to government agencies who might wish to prosecute for the charges stemming from the statements.

This book makes no attempt to deal with the unanswerable question of whether Americans are more or less brutal than others, or whether this war is any different from others wars. But Lane does assert, on the back of the book jacket, that

If Americans know less than all there is to know about the terrible cost the war is imposing upon the civilian population of South Vietnam, they know next to nothing of the real cost America is paying for its adventure. The real price is the sacrifice of an entire generation.

Not the entire generation. My mind spins from the book back to the beach back home. Marvin (not his real name) is sitting on the back of a car with a girl with a deep tan and flashing black eyes hanging on his arm. Marvin had been a shy, fumbling, big-boned freckled boy who wasn't coordinated enough to play football or put the shot. But he lifted weights and always tried so very hard. Everyone wished him well. He enlisted. . . the Marines. He had just returned from the DMZ. The transformation was electric. With his black mustache, he looked like Clark Gable, broad chest, flat waist, deep penetrating calm blue eyes that seemed bottomless. Sideburns, deep unhesitating voice. Marvin was a presence of energy, a star.

"Everybody should go over there. You should go over there, Tim. It's the best thing that ever happened to me."

Someone mentioned a small town in Ohio that petitioned the government to remove the rest of their sons from fighting units, because 60 per cent of their young men had been killed in action. "Haw! haw!" laughed Marvin. "They must have been awful damn dumb."