This portrait follows the career of Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann from his arrival in Vietnam in 1962, to his death in 1972. It deals centrally with his outspoken disillusionment with the war and his role as a civilian in the pacification programme afterwards where he rose to become the first American civilian to wield a general's command in the war. Neil Sheehan was a Vietnam war correspondent for United Press International and the New York Times and has won a number of awards for his reporting. In 1971 he obtained the Pentahon Papers, which brought the Times the Pulitzer Prize gold medal for meritorious public service.