Vietnam War Collection: books plus

[jmm99]

Moreover, so as to immediately break the ten-book limit, here are four oral histories (two general, and two more specialized); all presenting a more generalized set of personal experiences than the eight "autobiographical" books above:

Everything We Had: An Oral History of the Vietnam War (Al Santoli, 1981)

Review by LR
There are actually two false war stories in this book, those of Thomas Bird ("Ia Drang") and Mike Beamon ("The Green-Faced Frogmen"). Mr. Bird apologized to the author after the book's publication. He did serve in Vietnam, not in combat, and the POW story is a complete fabrication. Mr. Beamon did not even serve in the US military, never mind the SEALS or Vietnam. At the time the book came out, 1981, it was difficult to get veterans to discuss the war at all, never mind insist they verify their stories. Mr. Santoli, who I knew personally, was as disappointed as any of his critics that he had been taken in by these accounts. Still "Everything We Had" is a monumental work, from the days before the Vietnam Wall. Then the popular culture wanted nothing more to dismiss the war completely and held the men who fought there in contempt as losers or criminals. The feelings of Santoli's real contributors are still a compelling read today, twenty years later.

To Bear Any Burden: The Vietnam War and Its Aftermath in the Words of Americans and Southeast Asians (Al Santoli, 1985)

Review by JMDV
I first read To Bear Any Burden when it was originally released in 1985. This has been a 'must-read' classic of American involvement in Southeast Asia since it was published. For it, Santoli interviewed, in depth, 47 individuals representative of that involvement from 1945 into the 1980s--Americans, Viet-Namese (communists and anti-communists), Cambodians and Laotians. The book is so artfully compiled as to flow like a single narration; yet the 'cast of characters' are separate in time, space, culture and social rank--an entire spectrum from ambassadors to villagers, soldiers to politicians, in one volume. No one's education about the Viet-Nam War is complete unless they've read this book.

Bloods: Black Veterans of the Vietnam War: An Oral History (Wallace Terry, 1984)

Review by RJR
This is similar to Santoli's book regarding individual experiences in the Vietnam conflict. You definitely get a feel for the Vietnam experience, and it is very readable. The narratives portray the unique challenges of this experience, along with the added dimension of the race issue. The range of assessments of the racial issue was amazing and educational for me; some of the vets had active civil-rights values and even revolutionary values before getting to Vietnam, and some had little or no opinions regarding race relations despite the turbulent times. The great range of views regarding whites and the dominant U.S. culture, including government, was intriguing. The attitudes toward the Vietnamese, both North- and South-, also held great range, and was fascinating. This leads me to feel that the strength of this memorable book is the common experience conveyed simultaneously with the diversity of experiences and attitudes.

Survivors (Zalin Grant, 1975)

Review by AC
Zalin Grant did a masterful job weaving together oral interviews of seven of the twelve survivors of one of the worst death camps run by the Viet Cong in South Vietnam. There were 11 deaths from disease and starvation, plus one killed attempting escape during the time period covered by Grant's book. After the unsuccessful Son Toy raid on an empty POW camp in North Vietnam, the Viet Cong moved their southern prisoners by walking them to Hanoi. The journey took six months, but ultimately all of Grant's survivors were released in Operation Homecoming in 1973. This book is must reading for the serious researcher on POWs, or anyone who wants to know how difficult it was to survive jungle captivity. Also recommended is a brand new book by survivor interviewee Frank Anton "Why Didn't You Get Me Out?," which includes most of his experiences covered in Grant's book, but adds Anton's observations about MIAs seen in Laos on his way to Hanoi, plus Anton's concerns about the plight of MIAs written off by the US government many years ago.

Finally, to set a chronological framework - and presenting a different picture of the Vietnam War in the eyes of the author (a Marine grunt and later an officer in the Aussie Navy):

Unheralded Victory: The Defeat of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army, 1961-1973 (Mark W. Woodruff, 1999)

Review by CS

Hello, I feel very strongly about this book. I feel quite inadequate to write a review of other peoples personal experiences in vietnam.

I served in Republic of Vietnam from 1967 through 1969 as a fresh butterbar (2nd Lt., then on as XO and revolving platoon leader (casualties for 2nd lts was always quite high) for the company I served with, then on as Platoon leader for a second tour then serving briefly as CO of company for a grand total of 3 days until I got wounded by mortar fire.

While I feel this book is a bit too right wing it clearly shows a significant amount of popular media of that era and today is frankly nonsense. A fact that no one seems inclined to reinterpret. Many people don't like this book, because if doesn't fit into their very very simplistic broad general view of a very complex civil war(take a look at vietnamese history the vietnamese have fought a handful of civil wars and wars of conquest) involving two superpowers selling their brand to the the world, Period. Vietnam just happened to manifest itself perfectly as the testing ground much to the pain of the vietnamese. It's coke or pepsi with a pistol to you head and that's that.

The entire strategic goals of the vietnam war and the way it were fought were obviously completely flawed, I highly advise everyone to read "A bright shining lie" along with "dirty little secrets of the vietnam war"; a bit of a cheesy title, and a bit simplistic but spot on with Facts about the conflict with only a very slight sense of favoritism towards the USA. The truth lies flat in the middle of these three books and is frankly much simpler than most would lead you to believe.

I served in highly populated areas my first year in country, there was definently "accidental" death of civilians from all manner of reasons (out at night after curfew triggering ambushes, random artillery fire). It was dangerous to be a civilian in vietnam and they suffered greatly regardless of their political stance. My second year was spent mainly fighting NVA in terrain with almost no civilian population.

This book should be taken with a grain of salt but there are many many facts in this book that highlight directly how much horse puckey and COMPLETE DISTORTION OF FACT was used for dramatic effect both then and now.

I feel competent to say this as I am currently typing this from my home in Vietnam. I speak vietnamese fluently, am married to a Vietnamese woman who's fathers side of the family was Viet Cong and her mothers ARVN.

Along with my unique experience as well as getting a real earful of communist propaganda, most of the references the author makes towards Hanoi's political and propaganda machine are easily found here in print by Vietnamese publications. I strongly urge people truly interested in learning some amazing and not often, if ever talked about facts to READ THIS BOOK.

You probably won't like its point of view, (I had a real tough time swallowing alot of" a bright shining lie" but the author does make a very strong and factual arguement). So does this former marine. Get this book and the others and stop kidding yourself about how much you know about Vietnam because you watched Platoon and Full Metal Jacket...

I found Woodruff's book very interesting - "winning" the warfare, but "losing" the war.

Regards

Mike

[outletclock]

John Prados and Ray Stubbe, Valley of Decision.

Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie. (Books I-III are perhaps all that is necessary.)

Robert Mason, Chickenhawk.

Philip Caputo, A Rumor of War.

Perhaps more tangential to the intended point of the original query, but a fun read nonetheless (the early Vietnam reporters - Halberstam, Sheehan, Arnett et al - through the coup that toppled Diem): William Prochnau, Once Upon a Distant War.

Speaking of Halberstam, I have actually never read either, but do/does The Best and the Brightest and/or The Making of a Quagmire merit inclusion on this list?

And speaking of books not read, here is a book only partially read by me, but which (I think) is thought well of, an assessment I find to be a justified one: Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An.

Regards
OC

[jcustis]

I can only offer one, and that is Frank Snepp's Decent Interval.

[outletclock]

Since JCustis mentioned Snepp's Decent Interval, I'll add two other books regarding April 1975:

David Butler, The Fall of Saigon.

Larry Engerman, Tears Before the Rain.

Incidentally, Harry Summers was at the American Embassy helping to conduct the evacuation, I think, which made me think of his On Strategy.

Regards
OC

[slapout9]

"Slow Burn" by Orrin DeForest-excellent book on Intelligence and Interrogation (the way it should be done) for Vietnam.


Buck Sergeants will definitely love Brennon's War

[Old Eagle]

by Douglas Pike. Powerful thesis on the inability of the west to come to grips with the pol-mil strategy of the Peoples' Army. I thoroughly enjoyed the book when it was first published in the 80s. I understand that it has come under some academic criticism in the meantime.

My personal theory is that we are still on the road to victory in VN, and that General Electric and General Motors will prevail where General Westmoreland and General Abrams failed. (I stole this line from somewhere, but as usual, can't remember where.)

[Sasquatch]

Response.....

And helps me clarify my thoughts on the question. And a new one... (Later).

Actually, there are two educational goals,

1. What memoirs. etc will help the strategic corporals (buck Seargeants) do their jobs better, and avoid reinventing the wheel. (The old joke, we fought in Vietnam for one year seven times, or something like that).

2. What really was the broad picture there? How did we get into that mess, and why did it end so badly?

There does not seem to be a version of the Ricks/Woodward first draft of history out there.

A good example is the US Military institutional bias against Body Counts;

The weekly casualty reports on the six PM news is unlikely to have been the subject of family reminiscenses around the dinner table.

[outletclock]

Sasquatch:

Meant respectfully: If the goal is to

help the strategic corporals (buck Seargeants) do their jobs better, and avoid reinventing the wheel

, then for said purpose, why limit the query to Vietnam? Obviously how the US entered the Vietnam War is Vietnam-specific, but helping the strategic corporal would not seem to be. Perhaps books regarding Korea, to take one example, or just as well other conflicts, might be equally (or even more?) useful for said goal?

Regards
OC

[slapout9]

Link to the final and complete 7,000 page history of Vietnam published for the first time without any redactions.....and it is free


http://www.archives.gov/research/pentagon-papers/

[outletclock]

Regarding prong 2) of Sasquatch's prompt - i.e., the "big picture" and the proffered example of a fixation on body counts - I consider James Wirtz's article "Intelligence to Please" (Political Science Quarterly, 1991) to be excellent. It examines the discrepancy between MACV and CIA estimates of the enemy Order of Battle.

Regards
OC

[Steve Blair]

Sasquatch:

Meant respectfully: If the goal is to , then for said purpose, why limit the query to Vietnam? Obviously how the US entered the Vietnam War is Vietnam-specific, but helping the strategic corporal would not seem to be. Perhaps books regarding Korea, to take one example, or just as well other conflicts, might be equally (or even more?) useful for said goal?

Regards
OC

Vietnam is worthwhile in this context because it is noted for "burning up" an entire generation of NCOs. As far as memoirs go, it's hard to find good ones that deal exclusively with NCOs (in my opinion). VN memoirs tend to focus heavily on junior officers and draftees. There are a handful that cover NCOs, but they tended to come out earlier in the memoir cycle (say the early 1980s).

There are also theme cycles you have to be aware of when looking at literature about Vietnam. There are some interesting and strong bias swings. One of the interesting things about Kieth Nolan's books is that you can almost follow that cycle in his writing (although it's not strong bias as much as it is a slight shift in focus).

If you read Lanning, be sure to read both books.

I'd second Ken's list, with the addition of "Ringed in Steel" by Michael Mahler and just about any of Kieth Nolan's books.

And just to make an observation about one of JMM's books, "The 13th Valley" isn't about Ripcord. Kieth Nolan has a good book out about that situation, but DelVecchio's book (which I consider one of the finest novels about Vietnam, if not the finest) deals with a later fight.

[outletclock]

"Vietnam is worthwhile..."

I realized after I posted that that there is absolutely nothing wrong on any level about creating a Vietnam-specific canon, and that said post therefore really was not warranted. I guess the lesson for me is, Think before posting.

Regards
OC

[Ken White]

... I guess the lesson for me is, Think before posting.

Not just for thee, for all of us, I suspect.

However, I'm opposed. Aside from the fact that I'm congenitally unable to do so at all times, that sure would take a lot of spark out of life on the internet...

[motorfirebox]

Vietnam is... noted for "burning up" an entire generation of NCOs.

Any recommendations on that topic in particular?

[Old Eagle]

Yeah, I'd like to see some documentation on the burning NCO issue.

We also have to ensure that we don't hijack the thread. If there is specific fodder for the canon on the NCO issue, fire away!

[Ken White]

Yeah, I'd like to see some documentation on the burning NCO issue.

We also have to ensure that we don't hijack the thread. If there is specific fodder for the canon on the NCO issue, fire away!

I disagree with that place to the extent I won't even link to it -- but since it's you, I 'll tell you where documentation can be found.

I'll also defer to Steve Blair who's historical documentation knowledge certainly exceeds mine. My recollection is that overall VN KIA rate was about 1% while that for NCOs was 2.5% mostly SGT / SSG. That doesn't count the 1,400 or so fragging incidents, 80 some odd Officers or NCOs killed...

However, just for grins, the fact that NCOs were being burned out is amply shown by the simple existence of the NonCommissioned Officer Candidate Course -- and the fact that their KIA rate was over 5%.

For the other NCOs, the burnout came from a year in Viet Nam doing pretty much the same job (few promotions or incountry rotations for NCOs as opposed to Officers and Troops) and about 10 months in the States before returning to the SEA Follies. That was unsustainable so by 1968, third tours coming up and still shortfalls in mid and senior grade NCOs (and Officers, many of whom resigned -- the NCOs could not) led the US Army's fine Battalion Commanders by sheer necessity to lean on new LTs and SGTs and thus reinforced and enhanced micromanagement as a life style.

I know many NCOs with five tours all in combat units but I know few officers with more than two. Of course, I also know some NCOs who served in the period with no tours -- tankers and support folks, mostly -- and I know an Officer with six tours (one in Laos and one in [theoretically]Thailand). It was simply a function of the system and times. We do it a little better today, I hope...

The evidence of that burnout lies in the immediate post Viet Nam Army which suffered from a significant dearth of NCO leadership. Most were too tired to care.

[Steve Blair]

NCO burnout in Vietnam was focused heavily in the senior NCO ranks ("in the rear with the Sergeant Major, the beer, and the gear"). Remember that during this period most (if not all) of the Army's SNCOs had combat time in Korea and even World War II. It wasn't a problem initially, but by mid-1968 the Army was relying more and more on "shake and bake" NCOs (guys who were a handful of months or maybe a year older than the men they were supposed to train and lead). Older NCOs were either getting out or using their connections to get rear jobs.

Again, this trend accelerated as the war went on. It wasn't so much a factor of KIAs as it was repeat tours and (likely underestimated) a major "generation gap" between the Regular Army NCOs and a mostly draftee force fresh from the impact of the counter culture.

Within the canon, most of Kieth Nolan's books touch on the NCO issue in at least some way, since his writing focuses for the most part on the period after 1968. It's touched on to a degree in some of the SOG memoirs, but like I mentioned before the memoirs tend to come from either the junior enlisted or officer ranks. Shelby Stanton talks about it in "The Rise and Fall of an American Army" as well. "Self Destruction" also gets into it.

[Mike in Hilo]

I'd like to second Old Eagle's addition of Pike's PAVN to the list. I think it's worth mentioning that among other useful insights, the book presents a succinct and lucid explanation of what occurred in RVN during the period--1969 onward--about which less has been written.

PAVN employed a methodology to convince the populace of its implacability, and attempted to raise the level of violence (now perceived to be unending) toward an unacceptable threshold. A steady rhythm of assassination, indirect fire and sapper attacks, punctuated by "high points" of greater violence proceeded, despite great cost, even during the period of greatest US/GVN success (1970-71). The calculation was that the Vietnamese majority, who were not in the enemy camp, including those alienated by PAVN/VC overreach; the many ethnic Southerners in whom disgust at all Northerners, whether Communist or Catholic was an ingrained trait; and even the Northern Catholic denizens of the urban slums who had come South as refugees from Communism, would find submission to new, unsavory overlords preferable to endless bleeding. And in 1971 it had become clear that the Vietnamese would be bleeding alone--that the US was indeed withdrawing. Other grievances were eschewed, PAVN psyops concentrated on exploiting the war weariness.

The lesson to be drawn, Pike points out, is that in any society that is not totalitarian, there is no effective counter to the prospect of "the fifty year war."

Cheers,
Mike.

[JMA]

That doesn't count the 1,400 or so fragging incidents, 80 some odd Officers or NCOs killed...

These are horrifying stats. Do you have an idea of the breakdown of motivations behind these actions?

[Steve Blair]

These are horrifying stats. Do you have an idea of the breakdown of motivations behind these actions?

Obviously it depended on the time frame and who you asked, but a reasonable number were either race- or drug-related. Fragging became a recognized issue after mid-1968 or so, and accelerated after 1969. It's also worth nothing that fragging was quite often a rear area phenomenon...and that wasn't helped by the practice of combat units "dumping" their problem children on the rear areas (be it battalion, brigade, or some other echelon). In some cases a fragging could be traced to a reaction to a "hard-line" career NCO or officer, but there were other cases where it was drug dealer retaliation or a more random event when some stoned trooper tossed a grenade in the general direction of someone who pissed him off.

Vietnam is also complex in that such things weren't necessarily tracked in previous wars, and that combined with the fallout from social changes in the US created an interesting situation. Fragging wasn't common in front line units, though, leading to speculation that lack of mission focus and clear purpose in the rear areas accelerated the incidence of fragging.