Some excellent writing in Salvatore Scibona's multi-generation war novel

I'm about 100 pp (25%) in to Salvatore Scibona's 2018 novel, The Volunteer, one that seems right in my wheelhouse (a painful lookback at the Vietnam War era) but that somehow slipped past me - but was thankfully recommended to me by faithful friend and great reader DB - and so far I'm impressed with the writing: How could someone who clearly did not participate in the war re-create the mood, the angst, the suffering, the fear, the boredom and deprivation with such seeming accuracy and detail? This goes well beyond the work of most historical fiction (strange to think of the Vietnam era as "historical," but there you have it) and in that he's created characters that feel vivid and alive, not just windows through which we gaze at the past. My question and concern, however, is: What will SS make of this material? He does a great bone-in-the-throat intro as we see a very young boy abandoned at an airport in Germany (this echoes a similar theme/plot element in Wim Wenders's film Alice in the Cities), and we meet Elroy, his criminally incompetent father (it does require a stretch of the imagination to believe anyone could be so careless about the custody of child). Then we meet Elroy's father, Volly (short for Volunteer) as we learn in great detail about his difficult childhood and his impulsive decision to enlist in the Marines and to serve 3 tours of duty in Vietnam. As noted, SS presents all this material vividly and dramatically - one piece was excerpted in the NYer and was subject of any earlier post - but at the 100-page mark it's time to begin setting a plot in motion - we know pretty much all we need to know about the protagonists and their back story. DB assures me that SS will rise to the occasion.