Brief History
Ed is first introduced as a “greenie” or someone who is green (new) to war. Â It shows the last stages of his enlistment and the first stages of his deployment to Vietnam circa the mid 1960s. Â He is assigned to a rifle platoon and quickly learns a lot of hard lessons about the war through first hand experience. He is usually portrayed as a simple soldier, not in theater for any ideology but merely because he chose to go. He has numerous close calls but eventually finishes his tour and goes home. Â
Â
Throughout the series he learns to challenge his fear of flying. Later he is shown as an army instructor in the USA and later as a student at Columbia University.