Review: Reading the book is a bit mundane. Reading between the lines is fascinating!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 3, 2012
The book is marvelous for what it is, but a bit disappointing for what it is not. It was never meant to be a history of Vietnam, the battle history of the 101st Airborne in Vietnam, or even a personal history of Henry Enoch's time in Vietnam. This book is more of a filtered memoir, sharing some of his thoughts and experiences while on a one year tour of duty. The book is not a very intimate look, except by accident.---The Good Stuff---* Enoch is college educated, and writes well. I ended up reading the book in one day, and it kept my interest and attention.* While there are no scandalous tell-all sections relating never before heard stories, there are some very interesting details, related almost matter-of-factly. For example, Enoch tells us that he is in country for several months before he even finds out where he is. And even then, he only finds out the name of the province-he still really has no idea of where exactly that province is. While this may exaggerate the point a bit, there has probably been no other American war where its troops didn't know where they were. To me, this spoke volumes.* Similarly, Enoch spends much of the book relating very boring and mundane details of his existence. I know more about his diet and snack food habits than I do my own. And yet this is, to me, telling. Enoch was a grad student in Chemistry, and now his world revolves around his supply of Twinkies. No thoughts of battle strategy, no interest in how to better defeat the NVA-his brainpower is tied up with cookies. Not to criticize the author, but again, to me this speaks volumes.* In the year that he is in country, you can almost feel his motivation and attitude collapse. The patrols get a little more relaxed; less attention to detail on guard duty; in short-a soldier who doesn't want to be there. His attention is far more riveted on personal comfort than any liberating of any country. Seems a remarkable contrast to WWII, which was only 20 years prior.---The Not So Good Stuff---* The descriptions of the author's day to day existence can get a bit boring. It seems that over half the words in the book describe meals, and three quarters describe basic creature comforts. While I think it makes an excellent point, as described above, it gets tedious.* You won't learn anything about the war itself. Enoch never relates any details of anything that happened at a higher level than what happened to him and his five buddies.---Overall---It is certainly not the best book you will ever read about Vietnam, but it does provide a very realistic look at what was important to the grunts actually fighting the war. There was no fanatic patriotism, no sense of liberating the cities of Europe, no thought of strategy or tactics...just counting the days to "get back to the world." In a way, that probably says more about the war than anything else.Since the book is relatively inexpensive, and a very quick read, I would say it is worth spending an afternoon or two to get an appreciation of the war through Sgt. Enoch's eyes.