Pamela Hashimoto helped design the intriguing book covers of both the Vietnam and U.S. versions.
For the published-in-Vietnam version, part of the treeline is from a photo taken on the Saigon River.
For the American cover, the underlying image is a photograph, taken by the author, of a captured Vietcong (Provisional Revolutionary Government of Vietnam) flag and an image of the Distinguished Flying Cross military decoration.
The flag was "liberated" from a Vietcong-controlled village during a 1966 operation by ARVN 7th Infantry Division units about 25 miles east of My Tho in the Mekong Delta.
"I wasn't too keen about a Vietnamese grunt climbing a dirt mound to take down the flag," the author relates, "because the VC were known to boobytrap them." But ARVN grunts insisted that their adviser needed a souvenir. He reciprocated with a carton of cigarettes.
Look closely and you can make out the stitching around the star.