Early Career
Tucker served in the United States Marine Corps Reserve in 1964, but was discharged for medical reasons (chronic ulcers) after finishing at the top of the first phase of his officer candidate training class at Camp Upshur at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Virginia. In early 1965, Tucker found passage to southeast Asia by tramp steamer from San Francisco and entered South Vietnam as an accredited freelance war correspondent.
With one brief sojourn home, he remained in the war zone through 1967, personally participating in a number of engagements. Late that year, he published Arkansas Men at War, a compendium of interviews with troops from the state he had followed into combat. The book received generally favorable reviews.
Following a brief stint as an assistant professor of American history at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, Tucker returned to the University of Arkansas Law School in 1968 as a second-year student, graduated, and was admitted to the bar that same year.
Read more about this topic: Jim Guy Tucker
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