one day i dressed up in my black suit which my roommate, john cantwell, an australian told me i lookedamn close to wearing black pajamas. but you see, i wanted to be cool because i was going out to meet my wife whom i had convinced to come in to saigon, even though the city was under rocket attack. i also put on black elephant hide boots, black shoulder holster and black shades. i carried a matching black elephant hide briefcase which was, of course, empty, but impressive nonetheless. and as i approached the entrance to the air base, two gis intercepted me. hey, man, are you part of that new secret force we heard was coming in country to turn this sucker around, they asked me and without batting an eye, i replied yes, son, but i can't talk about that right now. the truly cool guys i met were the black soldiers that we called bloods. but i think they carried being cool a bit too far like the brothers who wore black shades in the jungle when i, for one, wanted to see like i had never seen before. other brother who did not wear a flak jacket because it might wrinkle his shirt. there were

john cantwell joined in the early reports to say the enemy had gotten inside the embassy. if true, it would have been a major embarrassment to the united states. when american officials denied it later in the day, we in the press had to back down. we were accused for years to come of irresponsible reporting in that episode. but i eventually learned from veterans of a secret commando team who had been there that the embassy had indeed been invaded. john and all of the rest of us were right. john never lived to know it. it was killed in the may of fen sive along with two fellow aussies. i loved john just like a brother, too. over the years all we've heard is how we lost vietnam and what a great failure it was, and i hear this at every college campus i go to. but i suggested there was at least one great untold story from which we all can learn. i remember a sergeant major, a black sergeant major, a senior sergeant major in the marine corps, his name was edgar huff. he risked his life during the tet offensive when he decided to go out into machine gunfire to fall over the body