THE OVERALL TRUTH OF VIETNAM is stranger than fiction. And though The Sky Soldiers is a work of fiction, the incidences related are "relatively" true. A scattered force of over 80,000 Viet Cong guerrillas occupied the Mekong Delta. The U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force had less than 25,000 personnel based there, with considerably less than a sixth of that number engaged in armed combat, never at one time. Three South Vietnamese (ARVN) divisions, along with numerous local force militia units, had major combat responsibilities in the Delta. These responsibilities were sorely neglected. This allowed the Viet Cong to range with near virtual impunity within and around such notorious locations as the Plain of Reeds, the Seven Mountains region, Mo Cay, Vinh Quoi, Nam Can, and the U Minh: Forest of Darkness, where the sky soldiers in this story savagely battled the VC and kept their date with destiny.