John Paul Vann was a career Army officer.\xa0 He served in combat during the Korean War and was an advisor to the South Vietnamese Army\u2019s IV Corps fighting the Viet Cong for a year from 1962 to 1963.\xa0 Vann retired from the Army a few months after completed that assignment.\xa0 He returned to Vietnam in 1965.\xa0 First he worked as an official for the Agency for International Development.\xa0 Vann was then made the Deputy for Civil Operations and Rural Development Support for the Third Corps Tactical Zone in the twelve provinces north and west of Saigon.\xa0 In 1968 he was assigned to the same position for the Fourth Corps Tactical Zone in the provinces south of Saigon.\xa0 Vann died in a helicopter crash in Vietnam on June 16, 1972.\xa0 During his years in Vietnam, he developed some strong views about what the United States was doing versus what he thought it should be doing.\xa0