Wiest has put together a creditable oral history of soldiers and Marines who saw combat in the Vietnam War.

Veteran Magazine

Wiest has a good feel for the human side of the Vietnam War...[he] asserts that there 'was no single, generic military experience for infantrymen and Marines in Vietnam,' but he still provides a good sampling of what the war was like for American men fighting at the ground level.

Publishers Weekly

Unlike many books about the Vietnam War, Vietnam: A View from the Frontlines doesn't attempt to explain why the United States failed in Vietnam. Instead it aims to give the reader a grunt's-eye view of what happened on the battlefields of that tiny, Third World nation a generation ago.

Failure Magazine

From the testimony of combat veterans and their families, a military historian assembles a unique oral history of America's most controversial war...A smartly composed, affecting memory album of the draftees and volunteers whose service and sacrifice for so long went unacknowledged.

Kirkus Reviews

...powerful and revealing.

The Midwest Book Review