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Mark Bowden is a journalist and the author of 13 books, including Black Hawk Down and his latest, Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam.\n\n \u201cMy goal is never to condemn someone that I\u2019m writing about. It\u2019s always to understand them. And that, to me, is far more interesting than passing judgment on them. I want you to read about Che Thi Mung, an 18-year-old village girl, who was selling hats on corners in Hue in the daytime and going home and sharpening spikes to go into booby traps to try and kill American soldiers and ARVN soldiers in the evening. I want to\xa0understand why she would do that, why she would be so motivated to do that. And I think I did.\u201d\n\nThanks to MailChimp, LeVar Burton Reads, Babbel, and HelloFresh for sponsoring this week's episode.\n@markbowdenwrite\nmarkbowdenbooks.com\nBowden on Longform\n[01:00] Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (Grove Press \u2022 2010)\n[01:00] Bowden\u2019s Black Hawk Down Series at The Inquirer\n[01:15] Bowden\u2019s Archive at The Atlantic\n[01:15] Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam (Atlantic Monthly Press \u2022 2017)\n[02:00] Startup: A Novel (Doree Shafrir \u2022 Little, Brown and Company \u2022 2017)\n[02:00] readthissummer.com\n[09:30] "Hell Sucks" (Michael Herr \u2022 Esquire \u2022 Aug 1968)\n[10:15] The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (Tom Wolfe \u2022 Picador \u2022 2008)\n[10:30] Thy Neighbor\u2019s Wife (Gay Talese \u2022 Harper Perennial \u2022 2009)\n[11:15] Bowden\u2019s Inquirer stories reprinted in Road Work: Among Tyrants, Beasts, Heroes, and Rogues (Atlantic Monthly Press \u2022 2004)\n[24:15] "Tales of the Tyrant" (Atlantic \u2022 May 2002)\n[28:30] Worm: The First Digital World War (Atlantic Monthly Press \u2022 2011)\n[29:15] The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden (Atlantic Monthly Press \u2022 2012)\n[35:00] Erin Lee Carr on the Longform Podcast\n[35:45] "The Enemy Within" (Atlantic \u2022 Jun 2010)\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices