Chapter 15 - We Were Soldiers Once and Young

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. While the generation of men and women who fought in and staffed this conflict are disappearing with time, the war played an extremely important part of American social and military history. The story was a simple one - the American government felt duty bound to curtail the progress of communism in Asia. Seeing what had happened in Russia, China, and Korea, it wasn't too far a stretch to imagine what would happen under a similar regime in Vietnam.

The main troop push to Vietnam really started after the Gulf of Tonkin incident (1964) wherein

US Navy forces were carrying out covert operations in North Vietnamese waters. One thing led to another and before long we had as many as 543,000 troops stationed there in 1969. So, because I was a child and a young teen while I had friends whose brothers were involved in the conflict, I really paid very little attention to it. I did see how the war affected those around me though. My 5th grade teacher's son was killed in Vietnam, my best friend's brother was on Riverine Patrol Boats on Vietnamese rivers, and our neighbor's son was in the Army there, I think that is when I noticed many beer bottles in her trash on a regular basis.

If you don't know or remember this time here is a list of some novels you might consider reading.

The Fire Dream by Franklin Allen Leib - This was the first book about Vietnam I ever read. William Stuart, a Naval Academy graduate, goes to SERE (Survival, Escape, Reconnaissance, and Evasion) school and then goes to Vietnam. The people he meets and the hardships he faces are all part of the book.

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is a series of vignettes of different soldiers' experiences both during the war and upon their return home. While it is touted as fiction, O'Brien identifies that he has taken the stories from actual events.

The World Played Chess by Robert Dugoni - In 1979 Vincent Bianco has just graduated high school and is looking for a summer job. Working alongside two Vietnam vets in a construction job, Vincent gets the education of a lifetime. Now with his own son leaving for college, Vincent tries to impart to the child life lessons and the impact of the war on those who came home.

The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai - This novel is a family saga starting in 1920 when a woman is forced to flee her home in North Vietnam with her six children. The years pass and in Hanoi her granddaughter comes of age while her father and uncles are fighting a war that puts them on different sides of the conflict.

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen - Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the story's narrator is a communist double agent who comes to America after the fall of Saigon. While building a life in America he is secretly reporting back to his handlers in North Vietnam. Not only is this a terrific espionage novel but it is also a story of love and friendship.

Have you read any novels about Vietnam you'd like to recommend? Let me know.