Review: Richard A. Ruth, In Buddha's Company: Thai Soldiers in the Vietnam War

From 1965 to 1972 Thailand aided the American war in Indochina by dispatching 37,644 military personnel to South Vietnam as part of the US State Departments Free World Assistance Program. After America and South Korea, Thailands military contribution was the third largest of the Free World nations. The Queens Cobra Regiment, the first combat unit to arrive in 1967, was later supplemented by the Black Panther Division. Both units, located in the same area of operations between the port of Vung Tau and the US Air Force base at Bien Hoa, saw active combat, suffered casualties and fatalities, and killed many Vietnamese communist guerrillas. The aim of Richard Ruths study is to restore this forgotten episode in Southeast Asian military history and by doing so, to counter the prevailing historical interpretations of what took place.