Another War Documentary: Winter Soldier; and Some Books

As a semi-counterpart to Shoah (see previous post), I watched Winter Soldier (streaming on Netflix) -- a documentary containing footage of Vietnam veterans discussing their experiences in Vietnam -- as well as some boot camp stories, etc. The vets all participated in the Winter Solder Investigation (actually an anti-war event, not a government investigation), which took place in Detroit in January and early February 1971. The film includes some still photography from Vietnam, but it mostly shows men sitting at a microphone in a hotel conference room describing what they saw and did in Vietnam.

To say the least, this is a depressing film, but it should also be necessary viewing for anyone interested in the Vietnam War or warfare and soldiering in general. I've seen a lot of Vietnam War films (dramas) and read a fair number of books on the topic, but I had never heard of this film until recently. Apparently, its 1972 distribution was limited. It is also a testament to how powerful testimony can be (as in Shoah).

A few themes and details emerge, some of which are well-known but receive clear articulation here. First, there is a great deal of testimony (with supporting photos) about village destruction and displacement of civilians. It's absolutely devastating (and at least serves some contrast to destructive but more moderate and controlled activities in Iraq and Afghanistan). The dehumanization of the Vietnamese -- and the American soldiers -- also figures in much of the testimony.

I had intended this blog to be more about writing and books (mostly crime fiction), so in that spirit, I'll name a few somewhat related titles. Kent Anderson, who wrote what is probably the best Portland cop novel (Night Dogs (the protagonist is a Vietnam vet, too)), also wrote a Vietnam War novel that is worth reading: Sympathy for the Devil. (Anderson was a two-tour Green Beret in Vietnam.) On the theme of U.S. servicemen in Asia, Martin Limón's police procedural Jade Lady Burning (set in South Korea) is worth checking out. Karl Marlantes monumental Matterhorn (my post about that book is at this link) is now out in paperback and might be the best combat novel I've read. If you want to read something heroic -- and uncritical of the war, but still fascinating -- check out Charles Henderson's Marine Sniper (discussed here), a non-fiction account of Carlos Hathcock, the titular marine sniper.

Two Vietnam Memoirs

My armchair and I continue to spend a lot of time in war zones, mostly Vietnam. (I also recently read the pretty good Battle of Mogadishu book, Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down, but I won't comment on it here.)

Back-to-back, I read two well-respected Vietnam memoirs, Tobias Wolff's In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Last War and Philip Caputo's A Rumor of War. These two books provide an interesting contrast because the Vietnam experiences of the authors were significantly different.

At loose ends, Wolff volunteers without a lot of ideological commitment. He comes from a broken family background (father in prison) and has an ironic understanding of his position in the military from the get-go. For instance, he is kept in OCS to help put on a theatrical show. Wolff studied Vietnamese for a year, and then primarily served within an ARVN unit. He saw little combat, though had some close calls and certainly lived in some fear. Still, the memoir has a M*A*S*H-like feel to it: the book opens with 2nd Lt. Woolf and his sergeant attempting to procure a TV on Thanksgiving to watch Bonanza. (They eventually steal a TV.)

Caputo, on the other hand, entered the Marines and the war with significant dedication to their causes. He was among the first combat troops in Vietnam in 1965 and saw the war quickly escalate. This memoir's greatest strength is Caputo's examination of himself and others as line soldiers (platoon leader) under ongoing deployment and combat stress. In this regard, the second half of the book reminded me a bit of Karl Marlantes's recent Marine combat novel, Matterhorn. In the course of his time in Vietnam, Caputo came to see the war as terribly misguided, if not criminal. I couldn't help drawing imperfect but telling comparisons to Afghanistan -- civil war, assistance to local troops, fighting in or near villages, ambivalent civilian populations, etc.

More War: Matterhorn

I'm not quite sure what has happened , but now I have undeniably taken a detour into the fiction of war. It has been a startling, exciting period of reading. The titles I've read -- The Naked and the Dead, The Kindly Ones, and now Karl Marlantes's Matterhorn -- make a good list of epic, monumental war novels.

Each of these three novels has an interesting back story. Marlantes, a Marine veteran of Vietnam, apparently worked on and off on his novel for three decades plus. He tried to find a publisher at various times (e.g., 1977), but the book has only been published now, first by a non-profit, and then picked up by Atlantic Monthly Press (i.e., Morgan Entrekin). It received a glowing review by Sebastian Junger on the front page of the New York Times Book Review.

Matterhorn may not live up to its very highest praise, but it is pretty damn good. Fundamentally, the book offers a grueling, hyper-vivid account of combat and patrols in Vietnam. Marlantes is detailed in his descriptions of tactics and weaponry (and he includes a lengthy glossary and weapons list). Some readers may find the detail exhausting, but I found it interesting and a necessary part of the fiction. The long description of one brutal march (without resupply or medevac) echoes, I think, the exhausting march in The Naked and the Dead. Like Mailer -- though to a lesser extent -- Marlantes also wants to capture the social and economic diversity of the soldiers (and race plays a central role in Matterhorn as well).

This novel's shortcomings are few and excusable. In attempting to depict a wide swath of characters, some inevitably blur. In a small note on the copyright page, Marlantes writes, "Novels need villains and heroes..." In fulfilling this requirement -- and the requirement for a plot beyond the grind of war -- Marlantes lets the fictional mechanisms of his book creep in. But the occasional intrusion of the fictive also underscores how real and lived the novel feels.