With complete disregard for his personal safety: Adventures in writing accurate accounts of military combat

Abstract

Military historians attempting to write accurate accounts of combat frequently run into the problem of inconsistencies among sources. This is especially true for writers using letters and interviews taken shortly after a combat episode, along with interviews taken many years after the fighting. There is little research available, however, that seeks to examine the dynamics of this problem or that suggests ways of dealing with such inconsistencies. This essay shares the experiences of two coauthors of a book about combat in Vietnam and how the authors confronted the issue of contradictions in various accounts.