My friend is a veteran of the early war in Viet Nam, when it was not yet an official war, when we were first there on the ground quietly and in small numbers. He saw the war both from the above-ground military perspective and from the slightly clandestine side when he was “loaned” over to Air America, hauling mysterious cargos to and from nameless airstrips in areas we never admitted to. He has all of the usual kinds of stories men tell of their time in the war zone, tales usually punctuated by punch lines not all perhaps fit for...