It has essays and contributions from members of every branch of the U.S. military, from enlisted and officer, from women and men, from those of many skin colors and walks of life, from the famous and the unknown, from highly decorated combat troops and deserters, from front line grunts and jet pilots.

They document that thousands of soldiers, sailors and pilots refused to fight, sail and fly bombing missions in Vietnam, having a profound effect on the antiwar movement, and on the war itself.

One essay was written by Donald W. Duncan, a highly decorated Master Sergeant in the U.S. Army Special Forces ("Green Berets") who resigned in September 1965 just a little over a year after the Gulf of Tonkin incident which led the U.S. to engage more directly in the war.

An introductory essay explains how these papers "were filled with critical news about the war, cartoons that lampooned the military leadership, updates about soldier protest, and information on where GIs could find legal help."

Many of them carried irreverent titles mocking war and the military, including A Four Year Bummer, Kill for Peace and Fun Travel Adventure (FTA) which most GIs understood to mean "Fuck the Army".

Army Sergeant Skip Delano, who was stationed at Fort McClellan, Alabama after returning from Vietnam, writes about hiding from the Military Police (MP) in the trunk of a car to avoid six months in the stockade for distributing their paper Left Face.

Army soldier Terry Irvin recounts how after they "tried and tried" to get approval to distribute their underground GI newspaper, the Lewis-McCord Free Press on the Fort Lewis and McChord Air Bases in Washington, they decided to circulate the U.S.

One of these is reproduced telling of a soldier organized antiwar parade on Memorial Day at Long Binh Army Base in Vietnam; the result was eight Article 15s (a military administrative hearing) for disturbing the peace.

Fort Jackson was one of the Army's central training centers for soldiers heading to Vietnam and the UFO coffeehouse there is described as "an instant hit" by David Parsons in an introductory essay.

"Without exception," the introduction continues, "every GI coffeehouse in the network was subjected to attacks from a variety of sources — investigated by the FBI and congressional committees, infiltrated by law enforcement, harassed by military authorities, and, in a number of startling cases, violently terrorized by local vigilantes."

Several civilian organizers tell their stories here including Jane Fonda who describes being smuggled into Fort Carson by active duty servicemen in the trunk of a car.

It was signed by 1,365 active-duty military personnel, including 142 from Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas a generally pro-war town where there was a particularly active chapter of GIs for Peace.

Ridenhour gathered eyewitness accounts from other soldiers, and after being ignored by 30 members of Congress and Pentagon officials, took his story to Seymour Hersh who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on My Lai.

Citing congressional testimony, an essay by Ron Carver one of the book's editors, argues that by 1971 "desertion and AWOL rates had reached the highest levels in modern U.S.

Editor David Cortright argues African Americans "were among the most defiant troops in fighting against racism and the war and posed a significant challenge to the military's mostly white power structure."

He "announced publicly that the statements he made while in captivity were voluntary" and insisted that during his entire "time in prison, he "received shelter, clothing, hygiene, and medical care", "never went a day without food", and "was not tortured."

Carl Dix, a black Army enlisted man from Baltimore, describes showing up at Fort Bragg only to see a large sign outside the base, "WELCOME TO KKK COUNTRY".

Then he found out about the police attack on the Los Angeles Black Panther headquarters "where tanks and mortars were set up in the streets of L.A." He writes, "This war isn't just something over there, it's here, too, and I have to decide what side I'm on.

Hugh Thompson was an Army helicopter pilot in Vietnam and took heroic action to stop a number of killings at My Lai by threatening and blocking U.S. soldiers and preventing them from murdering unarmed civilians.

An ex-Navy flight instructor flew multiple times over San Diego dragging a banner encouraging sailors aboard the USS Constellation to stay home.

The goal was to create a kind of truth commission that would cut through the propaganda of military and political leaders to tell Americans what was actually happening in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Kelly Dougherty, an Army MP (Military Police), writes about the pervasive "culture of chauvinism and dehumanization" and said "we displayed a disturbing level of contempt towards the Iraqi people."

"[17] It turned out her father, who was stationed at Long Binh Army base in Vietnam, was sprayed daily with the dioxin-tainted herbicide called Agent Orange, which in addition to causing enormous environmental damage creates major health problems and birth defects in those exposed and their children.

"[2]: p.165–182 As the book concludes we learn about organizations and individuals who supported the GI and veterans anti-Vietnam War movement and who have worked to preserve and foster its history and legacy.

Involving Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Len Chandler, Holly Near, and others, it "became one of USSF's main attractions, and drew enormous audiences of GIs, both within the United States, and in Asia."

This collection "contains over 88,000 page images with searchable text taken from more than 2,400 periodicals and other items such as pamphlets and posters created by or for U.S. military personnel during the Vietnam War era.

Answering that it has been erased by a "rightward shift in U.S politics" which has worked to turn the "most vibrant and diverse antiwar movement in U.S. history" into "a band of craven, self-righteous, draft-dodging campus hippies".

Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize recipient for his disclosure of the My Lai Massacre, says of the book, "To be in a military unit and oppose a war that had the blessing of one American president after another took extraordinary courage — the kind that was displayed by only a few in the Congress and, sad to say, by not many more in the media.

"[22] Writing about the Waging Peace in Vietnam exhibit, Thomas Maresca of USA Today says "Hippies made the history books, but servicemembers risked prison".

[23] Hans Johnson, a contributing writer for HuffPost commented: "As the authors document — with a splendid compilation of essays & primary source material — rank-&-file, officer, & civilian opposition to the carnage changed the ground tactics & aerial bombardment strategy of the brutal 15-year war & hastened its end.