But the funny thing is, when the stories were published they gained a following. Part of it was guys who'd been there, "there" being WW II, Korea, and later the Gulf as well as Viet Nam. Some of the fans, though, were civilians who could nonetheless tell the difference between the usual fictions and stories by somebody who was trying to tell the truth he'd seen in the best way he could.
Some civilians really wanted to understand. I guess that as much as anything helped me get my own head straighter over the years.
After I got back to the World I'd just done what was in front of me. I didn't think about the future, because I suppose I'd gotten out of the habit of believing there was one. When I raised my head enough to look around—almost to the day ten years after I rode a tank back from Cambodia—I quit lawyering and got a part-time job driving a city bus while continuing to write. I didn't quit lawyering "to write" (though I'd already had two books published) but because I realized the work was making me sick.
At this point something unexpected happened. Publishers were setting up new SF lines. Editors already knew that I would write them a story that people wanted to read; my first book, Hammer's Slammers, had succeeded beyond the editor's wildest dreams. (I didn't realize that for some years afterwards.) I got literally all the work I could do. The only limitation on how many books I could sell was the number of books I could write.
I've told you that Nam gave me a need to write and also gave me something real to write about. It gave me a third thing: service with that unit I'd never heard of; the 11th ACR. I'd been part of a professional outfit whose people did their jobs with no excuses, no matter what the circumstances.
There are writers who spend more time making excuses for why they can't write than they do writing. I could've become one of them, but that attitude wouldn't have cut any ice in the Blackhorse. Instead I just got on with my job, and since 1981 I've supported my family as a full-time freelance writer.