He was exceptional from the start, not just because he was brilliant and curious and widely read, but because he was unafraid to face the truth, cared enough to act on it, and was willing to take the consequences. He wasn’t questioning the war itself, not yet, not by a long shot. That would be psychologically just about impossible for someone serving the U.S. government in Vietnam and living the war every minute of the day, and as soon as such a question began to germinate it would be time to ship quietly out to some other port of call—you’d have no business staying. Instead, he put his whole
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