I could listen to this carol over and over again. I hope you'll listen at least once. It is performed by the Cambridge Singers, conducted by John Rutter.
Huế 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam by Mark Bowden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Riveting account of the battle the was a turning point in the Vietnam war.
Mark Bowden meticulously writes of one battle in the Vietnam War. His argument is that this battle, the American fight to take back the city Hue from the Vietcong was the battle that showed America that they were fighting a futile war.
Bowden treats the subject with sensitivity and objectivity. His chapters rotate from members of the Vietcong, whose stories he got years later, to the American marines who fought them and the hapless civilians who were getting slaughtered or left homeless by both sides.
Bowden's description of the war and the individual battles and individual experiences of several of the men who were there pulls the reader in and this reader was as horrified as much as she was enthralled. The author makes you feel as if you were there and you suffer along with each person as we learn their story.
The only negative I would give is the occasional use of raw language. Not so much when he is quoting marines. If anyone has the right to drop some "F" bombs it's marines who serve in wars. My objection is the gratuitous use of the word, as when he uses it in his chapter titles. That does not come across as honest, but rather like the author is trying to prove how edgy he is, which I find rather juvenile.
But that one objection aside, I really liked this book. I learned so much about the Vietnam war, particularly this battle in a key city and all the individuals involved. Yes, that is what I liked most. This war was not fought by "armies". It was fought by individuals, each with a life that was and is sacred as all life is. There was a lot of waste of sacred life and, thanks to Bowden's realistic descriptive narrative, I felt those lives deeply.
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Huế 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam by Mark BowdenMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Riveting account of the battle the was a turning point in the Vietnam war.
Mark Bowden meticulously writes of one battle in the Vietnam War. His argument is that this battle, the American fight to take back the city Hue from the Vietcong was the battle that showed America that they were fighting a futile war.
Bowden treats the subject with sensitivity and objectivity. His chapters rotate from members of the Vietcong, whose stories he got years later, to the American marines who fought them and the hapless civilians who were getting slaughtered or left homeless by both sides.
Bowden's description of the war and the individual battles and individual experiences of several of the men who were there pulls the reader in and this reader was as horrified as much as she was enthralled. The author makes you feel as if you were there and you suffer along with each person as we learn their story.
The only negative I would give is the occasional use of raw language. Not so much when he is quoting marines. If anyone has the right to drop some "F" bombs it's marines who serve in wars. My objection is the gratuitous use of the word, as when he uses it in his chapter titles. That does not come across as honest, but rather like the author is trying to prove how edgy he is, which I find rather juvenile.
But that one objection aside, I really liked this book. I learned so much about the Vietnam war, particularly this battle in a key city and all the individuals involved. Yes, that is what I liked most. This war was not fought by "armies". It was fought by individuals, each with a life that was and is sacred as all life is. There was a lot of waste of sacred life and, thanks to Bowden's realistic descriptive narrative, I felt those lives deeply.
View all my reviews
7 comments:
i can well imagine this was a difficult book to read... those of us who were under the threat of the draft, regardless of their political positions, lived each day agonizing over the futility and the losses that occurred; i would have been there if things hadn't happened the way they did... a sad time for the world and the country...
(p.c. r'c'v'd: tx a bunch!)
Well, the loss of life was horrific. Of course it always is with war. I think the message in The Ugly American was very appropos.
And your very welcome! :)
I should read this book. I read a fair amount of books, some first hand accounts from soldiers, on The Vietnam War, sond years ago. This looks like a worthwhile addition to that reading. I also want to read Bowmdan’s Black Hawk Down.
Hi Brian. I would like to read Black Hawk Down as well. I've not seen the movie. There's a few other books on Vietnam I would also like to read.
Great review... I'll need to read this at some point. My dad was a child in Vietnam during the war. We watched the Ken Burns documentary together last year, and it was an eye-opener, not just the history but some of the memories I heard from him for the first time.
HI Marion. You dad must be around my age. I grew knowing about the boat people and since my dad was in the Air Force, we have a lot of friends who are Vietnam vets. I guess I feel nostalgic about this time and also like to read good analyses about this war.
Thanks for this very generous review of my book, Sharon. Guilty as charged of occasionally (and only occasionally) using raw language. Three of my chapter heads did so — four if you count "ass" as raw language. All are drawn from the comments of those I was writing about, and, I thought, in some way captured the essence of the material in that chapter. I am, I assure you, at age 67, NEVER trying to be "edgy," although my wife, kids, and grandkids would definitely vouch that I remain — again, on occasion — irredeemably juvenile.
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