Fighting the Bad War

In November 1966, Angelo Presicci found himself manning an M50 machine gun atop an armored personnel carrier in the jungles of Vietnam's Tay Ninh Province. He was a 22-year-old gay draftee from a small town in upstate New York. The linked stories in Fighting the Bad War are based on Presicci's experiences in battle and on the long way home from America's most unpopular war, the last entrusted to a citizen army. Presicci follows the travails of a fictional armored cavalry crew as they find themselves intruders in a civil war, neither welcome nor clear about their mission. As body counts and wasted countryside bleed the Vietnamese, the GIs do as soldiers have always done: fight, grieve over their own, try to survive. The friend by day is often an enemy by night. The return home is nearly as treacherous. This was not their fathers' good war. These stories tell a tale of shattered naïveté. "I believed in my country's ideals when I was drafted, but, also, I was young and welcomed the adventure." says Presicci. "I have tried to convey the awe of war and the shame of it."

Angelo Presicci arrived in Vietnam in August, 1966, and served as a reconnaissance scout and Armored Personnel commander with the 11th Armored Cavalry. He was awarded a Combat Infantry Badge and Bronze Star with V for valor, and was honorably discharged in November, 1967. Presicci went on to earn his BA from UCLA and teaching credential from Long Beach State. He was active in the anti-war and gay rights movements and has authored several plays as well as fiction. In 1973, he joined the Peace Corps spending two years teaching English as a Second Language in a village in Zaire (Congo).