One reason he may have faded from sight is the record of the 9th ID in that region during that time. Now, let's be VERY clear that I'm not saying Waldron did this, but the 9th under Ewell (the division commander at the time who also wrote "Sharpening the Combat Edge") had something of a history of padding its body counts (very out of balance ratios of weapons to bodies tends to raise an eyebrow...and it's interesting that in "Sharpening the Combat Edge" Ewell talks about KIA 'exchange ratios' as a measure of combat effectiveness but remains fairly silent about weapons captured). They did a lot of night operations which seemed to boil down to shooting anything that moved after dark (again, this is something of a generalization, but it is commented on in many sources including Krepenevitch's book on Vietnam and "Self Destruction"). I think John Paul Vann had some sharp words about the 9th ID's combat operations.

If he was being used to pad body counts, I could see where that might contribute to his estrangement.