US writer who began publishing fantasy stories with "Heartland" for Orbit 16 (anth 1975) ed Damon Knight, but most of whose work of interest was generated by his time as a combat correspondent in Vietnam, where he observed the 1968 Tet offensive.  Like Norman Mailer (1923-     ), he had gone to war in his teens with the express purpose of writing about it, and his first novel, The Short-Timers (1979), successfully deploys HORROR and fantasy elements to describe a world as crazy as the one that allowed the war to happen.  GHOST tanks roll across blasted landscapes, M-14s whisper instructions to their adolescent familiars, and DEMON snipers pick off entire patrols.  For the movie version -- Full Metal Jacket (1987) dir Stanley Kubrick -- Hasford received co-credit for the screen adaptation.  In the book's sort-of sequel, The Phantom Blooper (1990), the voice of a turncoat Marine haunts a ravaged Vietnam LANDSCAPE.
    Gus Hasford was a maverick of enormous energy, part of it spent in stealing a reported 800 library books from around the world (for which he eventually served time in prison).  His death was hastened by untreated diabetes.