Americans who believe that the United States Army is a fit fighting force may be in for a rude shock. The authors of this powerful and frightening book, former soldiers long and intimately associated with the Army, demonstrate that our national defense is far weaker than we may imagine. In the event of another war, we face the possibility of rapid defeat because of military mismanagement.

Even before the final debacle in Vietnam (when, as the authors show, our forces were in a state of advanced disintegration), there were strong indications that our officer corps was more concerned with furthering their individual careers than with developing cohesion. Honor, integrity, and personal responsibility had been abandoned to selfish ends. It was not the antiwar sentiment at home that destroyed the Army's effectiveness; it was the Army brass itself.

The war in Southeast Asia saw hitherto virtually unheard-of assassinations of officers ("fragging"); combat refusals in high numbers; falsified reports; events like that at My Lai; an inflated officer corps; the bestowal of unearned medals and honors; a rotation system that discriminated against the enlisted men; an emphasis on body counts; racism; and a heroin trade and dope addiction of epidemic proportions that the military managers either ignored or were ignorant of. Most of these problems were not caused by the war; they were brought to light and exacerbated by it.

In spite of the claim that the faults so evident in Vietnam have been corrected, today's Army remains ill-prepared. This startling book provides the documented evidence.