Surprised to see a Vietnam War story in current New Yorker - and it has the stamp of authenticity

I'm really surprised to come across, in last week's New Yorker, a piece of short fiction - obviously, an excerpt from a forthcoming novel, that centers on the experiences of a young Marine in service in the Vietnam War. That was a half-century ago, with several American wars - and attendant re0creations of on-the-ground fighting from a # of novelists - since then. (British writers of course are still drawn to the two World Wars - one of them more than a century ago! - for material.) The fiction piece, Do Not Stop (the most basic order for military convoys), by Salvatore Scibona, has all the feeling of an autobiographical piece - that, or else he's done a great job at re-creating an on-the-ground scene from research and imagination. So if it is based on his actual experiences, where has he been all these years? Fact, fiction, memoir, work of imagination, however you score it this piece seems to have the stamp of authenticity, and it's a little unusual in that it focuses on a naive young Marine without any political baggage and without any great deal of awareness or self-awareness - just his traumatic experiences on convoys to and from the "in country" advance lines, a struggle against the elements and the dangers, with the sense of invulnerability the soldiers had to develop and with death and damage always just a blink away. There's nothing heroic in these scenes, but each soldier was a hero in his own way, altogether forming a powerful armed force with no chance of victory as the cause was futile and unjust. I'm not sure how or whether SS sustains this narrative over novel-length - to work on the long form, the protagonist - Vollie (a play on his been a Volunteer, no doubt) grows and changes over the course of his service: Does he develop politically? Does he face some kind of crisis in battle, moral or physical? Do we follow him back to the States and perhaps over a lifetime? The writing's really impressive here, and what SS has to develop is a broadening of Vollie's character and awareness.