This is the first of a series of reviews I'm planning on writing about narrative style war chronicles. I'd like to write at least three of them by next week, so I should be done by the time we colonize mars.
But alas, I digress
I read this book for a college course on the American experience in Vietnam. It was written by Philip Caputo. Caputo had one of the most unique perspectives on the war possible. He was a young Marine lieutenant when the Marines first came ashore in force in Vietnam in March of 1965. Ten years later he was one of the reporters that reported on the final fall of Saigon to Communist North Vietnamese forces.
Caputo is one of the first Marines ashore in Vietnam and is part of the intial process of escalation that led to our massive commitment to that country. He first guards an airbase, then makes limited patrols into the surrounding countryside to route out snipers. Eventually he is part of the first massive search and destroy operations of the war.
Caputo's book chronicles the sixteen months of the war, or at least what he saw of it. From leading a platoon guarding the airport in Danag, to endless patrols in search of a phantom enemy. Eventually he is transferred to a staff position and as one of his duties posts every day the number of American's lost and VC killed on the regemental HQ's blackboard. To say this has a negative affect on his morale is to put it mildly.
Caputo is then transferred back to an infantry company to serve once again as a platoon leader. He serves in this capacity until stress and lack of judgement lead him to order his men on a anti-insurgent mission that results in the death of an innocent pro-American informer. While Caputo is cleared of all charges he is sent home soon after.
Caputo's book radically effected my understanding and appreciation of the Vietnam war. In his simple straight language he conveyed in a way I have never before seen the sheer horror and absolute waste of war in general, and Vietnam in particular. He and his men are not the disheartened stereotypes of Oliver Stone movies, they are true patriots. Committed to what they are doing. True believers in the desperate fight of freedom against the Communist menace. That is the true horrific value of the book. More than any other I've read Vietnam, "Rumor of War" shows the transformation of a well trained cohesive fighting force into the disheartened organization that has come to sybolize American forces in Vietnam. In a sense it is a case study of the US Military's slip into the abyss.
This is perhaps the best first person perspective on war I have ever read. In one book it totally exploded the arguments of countless professors and other writers who analysed Vietnam after the fact. It became popular after the war to suggest what America SHOULD have done to win the war. One book in particular suggests everything from giving better arms more stringent training to local South Vietnamese milita forces to American carpet bombing of NVA forces right before they entered Saigon in 1975. From Caputo's book it becomes crystal clear that America could not have won the war in South Vietnam. If fact we never even knew what "winning" would entail. We just persued an ever rising body count. I might be wrong in that assertion, but after reading Caputo's book I doubt I'll ever hold another opinion on the matter.
So if ya haven't guessed by now this is a great book. For anyone interested in Vietnam, the military, history, or the 60's "A Rumor of War" is an indispensable aid to your understanding of the subject. In fact even if you have no intrest in any of those subjects at all you should probably still read it. Maybe it'll help you understand what the hell happened to our country during the Vietnam era.
Images from this book literally haunt me, and I can't say that about any other that I've read.
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