So, you've read Cleland's book and can state definitively that SkyPilot's post is incorrect?
Yes. SkyPilot is wrong on three counts.
Cleland blew himself up in an accident away from the front by dropping his own grenade while enroute to have a beer with his friends (this is Cleland's own account).First, it was not his grenade. Cleland believed it probably was for 30 years and that appeared in the “The Power of Character” (Jossey-Bass, 1998). He also wrote that in his first edition of Strong at the Broken Places. When he was told it was another soldier's grenade AND was able to verify it, the book was updated in 2000 where he discusses the impact of that revelation.
Second, he was not on a chopper beer run.
Third, the hilltop off Route 9 at Khe Sanh is hardly far from the "front". But perhaps you could remind where the Vietnam "front" at Khe Sanh?