Vietnam war

John Nichols' new novel dwells on the horrors of the Vietnam War. Earlier in life, he moved to New Mexico to work as a political activist. Those experiences were the basis of his popular New Mexico Trilogy.

Former Democratic congressperson and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy has a new memoir about his political career called Up 'til Now. He talks to Fresh Air's Terry Gross about the tumultuous Vietnam War years.

Nicholas Proffitt's book Garden of Stone, inspired by his ceremonial role in the Army during the Vietnam War, was recently adapted into a film by Francis Ford Coppola.

Writer and Marine veteran William Broyles visited Vietnam years after the war to help come to terms with his experiences there. He made a point of being honest about his combat role when meeting with different Vietnamese people who survived the war.

Robert Stone's novels explore the drug culture of the 1960s and the Vietnam War--both of which he lived through. Often associated with Ken Kesey's LSD-fueled Merry Band of Pranksters, Stone now lives a quiet life in New England.

EMILE DE ANTONIO is regarded as one of the most important political filmmakers of the American Left.

David Halberstam is a journalist and author who won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the Vietnam War for The New York Times. Two of his recent books examine American values as expressed through sports: "The Breaks of the Game," about basketball, and his latest "The Amateurs," about rowing.

Inspired by a report of a violent crime committed by a Vietnam veteran, journalist Joe Klein followed five Marines who served in the war to learn how they've adjusted to civilian life.

Maya Lin's concept was accepted while she was still and undergrad at Yale. She has recently worked as a set designer and is studying to be an architect.

Lady Borton is an American Quaker who has done extensive aid work in Vietnam and with Vietnamese refugees. In 1980, she served as Health Administrator of Pulau Budong, the largest Vietnamese refugee camp in Malaysia. Borton describes the conditions as terrible, including, overcrowding, lack of food, and a rat infestation. Borton has a written a memoir of her time working in the camp, "Sensing the Enemy: An American Among the Boat People of Vietnam."