A strangely compelling book; basically Hunter S. Thompson / Tom Wolfe style New Journalism, but a very spaced-out, hazy, poetic, vaguely "late-1960s-hangover"-vibe version, and then applied to some of the darkest topics imaginable. A very tough read, in a way, but expressing deeper truths.

Herr is also the key source for both Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now (not a bad pedigree), which makes it sort of the ur-text for poetic-apocalyptic-hellscape meditations on war and postmodernity.



p. 67:

In Saigon, I saw friends flipping out almost completely; a few left, some took to their beds for days with the exhaustion of deep depression. I went the other way, hyper and agitated, until I was only doing three hours of sleep a night. A friend on the Times said he didn't mind his nightmares so much as the waking impulse to file on them. An old-timer who'd covered war since the Thirties heard us pissing and moaning about how terrible it was and he snorted, "Ha, I love you guys. You guys are beautiful. What the fuck did you think it was?"

p. 111:

I stood as close to them as I could without actually being one of them, and then I stood as far back as I could without leaving the planet. Disgust doesn't begin to describe what they made me feel, they threw people out of helicopters, tied people up and put the dogs on them. Brutality was just a word in my mouth before that. . . . but of course we were intimate, I'll tell you how intimate; they were my guns, and I let them do it.

Wow!! This was a fascinating first-hand account from a guy on the ground and in the mix!!

3,5*, όχι γιατί δεν είναι (πολύ) καλό, απλά γιατί έχοντας διαβάσει και σοκαριστεί τόσο από τους μεγάλους πολέμους και την απόλυτη φρίκη τους, ο πόλεμος του Βιετνάμ, μία παράλογη εποχή και μία εξαιρετικά σπάνια ήττα των Αμερικανών, μοιάζει με ένα ακόμα πολύχρωμο επεισόδιο της ανθρώπινης τρέλλας. Ένα όμως.

Παράλληλα, αφού κάποιος διαβάσει το The things they carried, μία ελαφρώς λογοτεχνική (και καταπληκτική) απεικόνιση του πολέμου του Βιετνάμ και δει το απρόσμενα (λόγω της νηφάλιας αποτύπωσης όλων των παραμέτρων) πολύ καλό ντοκυμαντέρ The Vietnam War, έχει αποκτήσει όλα τα παραισθησιογόνα στοιχεία που απαιτούνται για να μπει στο νοσηρό κλίμα της εποχής εκείνης. Και φυσικά το "Full Metal Jacket" και "Αποκάλυψη τώρα!", έργα που δανείστηκαν από το ύφος του παρόντος βιβλίου. Βέβαια ο κινηματογράφος δεν είναι ούτε λογοτεχνία ούτε πολεμικό ρεπορτάζ (το τελευταίο υπηρετεί με τρόπο κατάλληλα σουρεαλιστικό το Dispatches) απλά το Βιετνάμ χρειάζεται, νομίζω, και εικόνα, ή τουλάχιστον πολύ ισχυρή "πένα". Ο Michael Herr, βυθίστηκε, συνειδητά, στις ψυχές των Αμερικανών στρατιωτών που πολεμούσαν για κάτι τελείως ακατανόητο. Cudos to him. Αξιόλογο, αλλά συμπληρωματικό.

I read this book once long ago. I still consider it a great book, but I found something missing this time around: humanity. I got the feeling Mr. Herr was just looking for quirky quotes to make soldiers look like fruit loops or, worse, psychotic killers. He totally missed anything about the other sides of their personalities. I have been around enough veterans to know that other side exists. I pictured him rushing off to a pen and paper every time he heard someone say something unusual and ignored any talk about, oh I don't know, maybe girlfriends? I will try and point out some sections which may or may not show what I mean.

Here's a war story it took him "a year to understand."--"Patrol went up the mountain. One man came back. He died before he could tell us what happened." Herr asked, "So what happened?" The guy just walks off in disgust. I guess it reflects the general hatred of newspeople trying to get stories. And, of course, the man already told him he didn't know what happened.

A correspondent once said to some soldiers in the jungle, "Gee, you must really see some beautiful sunsets in here." The soldiers "almost pissed themselves laughing."

A chopper is pulling soldiers out of a losing battle. Not everyone can fit. American GIs start shooting ARVN soldiers hanging on to the helicopter and pulling it down.

Famous story: Some reporters ask a door gunner, "How can you shoot women and children?" He responds, "It's easy. You just don't lead 'em so much." Get it? Pretty funny, huh? But I wonder, "Are the reporters making a false assumption? Do the reporters get that they are being pranked?"

Herr claims a "serious tiger lady" was "going around on a Honda shooting American officers on the street with a .45." I have never been able to substantiate that story. One commander thought it was a man dressed in an ao dai because a .45 was "an awful lot of gun for an itty bitty Vietnamese woman."

Almost everyone had some sort of good luck charm. I know I had a St Christophers medal someone gave to me.

At Khe Sanh a man gets killed by a grenade rigged on the outhouse door. Everyone knew it was really a GI that did it.

"Going crazy was built into the tour."

"Load all the Friendlies onto ships and take them out to the South China Sea. Then you bomb the country flat. Then you sink the ships."

"Most Vietnamese and most Montagnards considered each other inferior." I knew North Vietnamese who looked down on the South Vietnamese as sort of farmers or hicks. The North was more industrial.

The daily briefing was known as the Five O'Clock Follies.

Westmoreland did not want to lose at Khe Sanh. Johnson did not want "any damn Dinbinfoo." They assured the country that Khe Sanh would be held at all costs. The defenders became hostages, nearly 8,000 Americans and Vietnamese. Herr compares Khe Sanh to the "planted jar in Wallace Stevens's poem. It took dominion everywhere."

At a camp called Langvei, the defenders were overrun by Russian tanks.

The grunts seemed to run around more when they knew a television crew was around. Reminds me of a scene in Apocalypse Now.