You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
Homeboy gets a hardon for going to war from the rousing rhetoric of JFK. So he joins the marines and after some training gets to Vietnam. It starts out kinda boring, hurry up and wait type shit. Later he gets assigned to body detail, logging casualties into the books with euphemisms like "sympathetic detonation" for when one of your grenades is set off by something else and your shit gets blown to shit. Stuff like that. Then he gets reassigned again, back to a rifle company. There are hot LZs and some shooting of possibly innocent prisoners. We learn about the hatred the US G.I.s developed for the VC, not because of a difference in politics but a retributive hatred stemming from the deaths of their buddies at VC hands. Both sides commit their fair share of atrocities. And we get the common theme of every Vietnam book I've read: we were mislead in to this war thinking it was for a good reason but in the end we were there fighting, killing and dying for the men next to us. It's all about your buddies yada yada. Caputo didn't end up getting in much trouble for the prisoners killed under his watch. Then he becomes a journalist and goes back to cover the exit of US support from Saigon. The end.
Vietnam memoirs are starting to run together for me. But this one was well written and kept my attention a bit more than some of the others.
Flappa-dap,
Mitchs
Vietnam memoirs are starting to run together for me. But this one was well written and kept my attention a bit more than some of the others.
Flappa-dap,
Mitchs
First serious war book I've read but I enjoyed it for the most part. It taught me a lot about Vietnam that I didn't know before.
This certainly isn't an easy book to read in terms of content, but I think it offers a valuable, honest perspective in response to such a hugely demoralizing event in America's history. I can't say it's my favorite, but I can say it's a worthwhile journey.
dark
informative
sad
fast-paced
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Kevin Powers’ foreword shares that he will rely on this memoir to describe war and conflict to his children one day, and after reading it, I now understand why. As a veteran, each page describes routines, actions and emotions that are truly authentic.
Caputo's look back at the beginning of America's major intervention into the Vietnam War. Heretofore, the emphasis on counterinsurgency had ruled strategic and tactical thinking. With the landing of US forces at Danang in 1965, all that began to change. From a perimeter base force to moving out into defensive patrols, Caputo's experience echoes in microcosm America's gradual escalation into a full out war in Indochina, albeit with a mishmash of restrictions and off limit areas. He also details his work counting casualties and the absurd situations that arose therefrom.
Caputo's book helped kick off the avalanche of Vietnam War related books that formed a sort of literary subgenre in the late 1970s and 1980s. This is one of the most important. I can't say the same for Caputo's subsequent fiction, but this work is vital to any student of the war or the literature that emerged from it.
Caputo's book helped kick off the avalanche of Vietnam War related books that formed a sort of literary subgenre in the late 1970s and 1980s. This is one of the most important. I can't say the same for Caputo's subsequent fiction, but this work is vital to any student of the war or the literature that emerged from it.
dark
reflective
tense
fast-paced
dark
reflective
slow-paced
dark
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced