From the Colonial War with France in the 1940s and 50s, through to the final evacuation of Saigon in 1975 and beyond, each chapter of "Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land: The Vietnam War Revisited" focuses on a different aspect of the Vietnam War. Officers from both the NVA and ARVN take a first-hand look at the strategy and tactics of both sides and give critical assessments of where the war went wrong; Le Ly Hayslip provides a harrowing account of life for the typical South Vietnamese civilian caught up in the war.