Southern Voices: Biet Dong and the National Liberation Front emerged from Michael Robert Dedrick’s 2013 endeavor to reconnect with Ba Đen, a Biệt Động [Rangers or Special Assault Forces] commander who was one of the three survivors of the 1968 Tết Offensive’s attack on the American Embassy in Sài Gòn. Dedrick, an analyst and interrogator-linguist for the US military in Vietnam in 1968, later joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace in the early 1970s. His motivation for writing the book was to reestablish ties with the past, specifically with Biệt Động soldiers who had fought against the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, aka South Vietnam) and the United States. Dedrick’s goal was to explore their individual stories, viewpoints, and wartime experiences for the purpose of personal remembrance.
As a result of Dedrick’s stated goal, Southern Voices is published as a bilingual collection, providing for the first time...