In 1974, John P. "Jack" Murtha became the first Vietnam combat veteran to be elected to Congress. Since then, Congressman Murtha has been intimately involved with governmental decisions about America's national security and foreign policy. Avoiding dry, detached analysis, this book presents the revealing story of an insider's involvement with international affairs and the lessons the author learned from those experiences. Jack Murtha offers candid observations of the most important international crises in recent history. From Vietnam and the Lebanon to Bosnia and Afghanistan, the volume details America's failures as well as its successes, pointing out where policy-making was misguided or ill-informed and offering perceptive analyses of resource allocation and policy direction for the coming century.