Born in Russellville, Alabama, Hasford joined the United States Marine Corps in 1966 and served as a combat correspondent during the Vietnam War. As a military journalist, he wrote stories for Leatherneck Magazine, Pacific Stars and Stripes, and Sea Tiger. During his tour in Vietnam, Hasford was awarded the Navy & Marine Corps Achievement Medal with Valor Device, during the Battle of Huế in 1968.
Hasford attended the Clarion Workshop and associated with various science fiction writers of the 1970s, including Arthur Byron Cover and David J. Skal. He had works published in magazines and anthologies such as Space and Time and Damon Knight's Orbit series. He also published the poem "Bedtime Story" in a 1972 edition of Winning Hearts and Minds, the first anthology of writing about the war by veterans. The poem was reprinted in Carrying the Darkness in 1985.
In 1978, Hasford attended the Milford Writer's Workshop and met veteran science fiction author Frederik Pohl, who was then an editor at Bantam Books. At Pohl's suggestion, Hasford submitted The Short-Timers, and Pohl promptly bought it for Bantam.

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