Lost Crusade: America's Secret Cambodian Mercenaries - Softcover

Scott, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1612514898 ISBN 13: 9781612514895

Publisher: Naval Institute Press, 2014

Synopsis

When Peter Scott began a 1968 tour in Vietnam advising ethnic Cambodian Khmer Krom paramilitaries, they shared only an earnest desire to check the spread of communism. It took nearly thirty years and a chance reunion for Scott to realize just how much they had become a part of him. This fascinating chronicle of Scott's experiences with the secret army of brave, disciplined warriors is by far the most moving and richly detailed account ever published of the deep bonds forged in war between Americans and our Asian allies.

Successfully blending intense combat narrative and stirring emotional drama, Scott vividly captures both the unique village culture of a little-known, highly spiritual people and their complex relationship with Special Forces soldiers, who found it increasingly difficult to match their charges' commitment to the costly conflict. With a novelist's powers of description and reflection and a professional soldier's keen insight and analysis, Scott raises the standard for literature about the Vietnam War with this searing portrait of promise and betrayal.

Building on his experiences as a Phoenix Program adviser near the Cambodian border, extensive interviews with Khmer Krom survivors, hundreds of hours of research in government archives, and requests for Freedom of Information Act disclosures, Scott seamlessly reconstructs the six-thousand-strong mercenary force's final crusade against communism, beginning in their ancestral home in 1970 and ending on the U.S. West Coast in 1995. Such a hauntingly evocative and highly readable book will both entertain and shock, and it is assured of a place among the classics on Vietnam.

About this title

About the Author:

Peter Scott was born and raised in Washington, DC. From 1967 to 1970 he served in the U.S. Army with the 82nd Airborne Division and was an advisor to the Phoenix Program in Vietnam. He has taught in private schools for more than twenty years and is the author of dozens of articles and stories.

Review:

Your book makes a solid contribution to clarifying the events that led to the coup d'Etat of 18 March 1970 in my country, the involvement of some foreign countries in the preparations for the coup and the tragic developments that followed it. It is an honest account based on your firsthand experience and I would like to commend you for having written it. Lost Crusade deserves to have a wide audience. -- Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia

About this edition

• Publisher: Naval Institute Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1612514898
• ISBN 13: 9781612514895
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216