For Good Reason by James D. Robertson

Twenty years after he survived Vietnam, Daniel Mulvaney’s memoir about it is a best seller. But success brings unforeseen attention. An invitation from a mysterious Vietnamese, to return to the land that nearly took his life, takes Danny back to when an idealistic kid was unjustly expelled from college and drafted into the US Army. The old nightmares resume. He can’t work. His marriage is in trouble.

As a young man in Brooklyn in 1968, Danny was unsure if his mom’s credo—everything happens for good reason—was wisdom or corny idiom, but he was determined to be a man worthy of Amanda, the girl he loved. Gino Sebastionelli, his closest friend, wanted to bolt for Canada together, but Danny wouldn’t be swayed. His idealism blinded him to the horrors ahead. He’d be wounded, decorated, betrayed, face court martial, and then be saved by Tom Tyler, an officer from Danny’s college town, where all his troubles began. When Danny’s platoon was nearly wiped out, Tyler was captured, and Danny would have to lead a green platoon, against orders, into the U-Minh—The Forest of Darkness—in order to have any chance of saving his lieutenant…