Well, I have another book recommendation for ya’ll, if you’re interested.
Patriots, The Vietnam War Remembered From All Sides by Christian G. Appy.
I have finally worked my way through the last of our newly acquired books on the Vietnam War, and am ready, I think to call a halt to my history studies on the subject (for now, at least). But of the books I've read, if someone were to ask me for one book that I think best tells the story of the war, I would recommend this one.
It’s unique. The author, instead of expounding endlessly on the political or military command structures and decisions, acts instead as the writer of short prefaces, giving information about what happened, and then letting the transcripts of interviews with people who were involved shine as the true stars of the show.
It’s main title is ‘Patriots,’ because one of the things that comes up in many of the stories is how patriotism, in one form or another (and with varying understandings of what it looks like) shaped the lives of those speaking. And the subtitle, claiming that it is “remembered from all sides” explains how the book moves from an interview with a man who was an American officer fighting near Danang, to the perspective of a woman who was seventeen when she joined the Viet Cong, and then on to a young, Vietnamese man who lived his early life in and around this conflict and how his thoughts on it changed over time.
In reading it you see the lives of civilians, politicians, doctors, poets, draft-dodgers, anti-war protesters, prisoners-of-war, and soldiers of the NVA (North Vietnamese Army), ARVN (Army of [South] Vietnam), US Army, Navy, and Air Force laid out like jigsaw pieces that don’t complete the picture on their own. But collectively, they fit together to create something striking, that has both layers and nuance to it.
There is something compelling in hearing the stories in each person’s own words (or their own words translated into English, in some cases). And the personal stories in the book are made more valuable to me by the fact that the author admits he felt he was racing against time to write them. Because from the time he did the many hundreds of initial and repeat interviews (of which he could only fit 1/3 or so into the book), to the point in the writing process where he would call back and ask clarifying questions, he would sometimes find that the person he had spoken to had died.
Perhaps he felt that these personal accounts of lives lived through that time were blinking out, one by one, and that those stories and valuable insights were being lost.
So, if anyone is interested in the history of the Vietnam War, I highly recommend this book. It’s not a clean history, or a pretty history, but there are stories of heroism as well as horror, and records of loyalty as well as loss. And after it all, the author chooses to close the book out with two stories of remembrance and hope, which I found to be a poignant and fitting end to these collected stories of a complicated history.
Thank you for enjoying this post from Mountain Chickadee! If this made you smile and you’d like to see more in the coming weeks, please consider subscribing to my Substack!
