I wanted to write a definitive book on the war. I wanted it to be definitive. I wanted it to encompass not just the American side, but also the Vietnamese, who they were, what had happened. I wanted it to be definitive. I hoped it would be widely read. I couldn’t have known the reception it would receive, no, but I was putting everything I had into it. I mean everything I had learned, all my skills that I had built up over the years were going into that book. It was exhausting. I thought I’d never write another book afterwards, because it was exhausting. I got so tired by the end. You’d get up in the morning — and you’d be exhausted — to start the day. You’d be so nervous, my hands would shake until I got the manuscript going again, my next segment, the segment I was working on. You’d get nervous. I had terrible stomach cramps for a long period of time from nerves of the whole thing, because your nerves get to you. You think, “When is this going to be done?” You see the end, but to get there! You know the path. What I should have learned was you don’t look at the top of the mountain, just look at the step in front of you, but it’s hard to do that. You keep seeing the top of the mountain. Jesus! Mother of God, it’s a long way away! I’m glad now I did it. It took up all my middle years. I started it in 1972, and I published it in 1988, and my middle years all went into it, but I am glad I put them into it.