Dispatches

Michael Herr's book, Dispatches, is a powerful literary work with its journalistic documentary immediacy, its emotional impact, and its historic implications. It speaks of the bravery and irony and ability to deal with absurdity that is so characteristic of America's young men. It tell of the idiocy when tremendous resources are put into place with little insight into history, culture, human nature, and the ability of ideology to blind leaders so that they ignore reality. Herr's writing style is testosterone-driven, machine-gun paced with clipped character studies of the many men he met in combat. Of course this is what I got from this book but I came to these conclusions from reading the realistic, earthy, often crude and rough, experiences of front line Marines as they experienced events beyond their control and often beyond comprehension. This book is gutsy and gives a gritty description of the conditions that our young men faced in a poorly led war. Blood, wounds, filth, anger, violence, irrationality, sex, and poverty are often ugly and messy and Herr does not shy away from straight-forward narration of these all too human conditions. Herr focuses on the soldiers on the front lines and gives a very real description of wartime. Herr's heart is with the soldiers and this shows in every description and event in the books. By giving the nitty-gritty details of life in wartime he becomes a defender and advocate for those young 19 year olds who underwent this ordeal. When the enemy can disappear into the forests and crowds and homes of the South Vietnamese, when the primary style of warfare is guerrilla warfare, then increased firepower and destruction is counter productive and bound for defeat. The Vietcong controlled the underground world of tunnels and caves whereas the United States controlled the air with our tremendous war machine. When we protect people by destroying their villages, fields, and forests we should not be surprised when they support the enemy. When entire forests and rice fields are destroyed so that the `enemy' has no cover, the war is lost, for those whom we claim to protect have now joined forces with the enemy. The US Forces had a slogan "Only you can prevention forests" that displays the irony these men felt at destroying a country to save it. Entire Vietcong units were supposedly destroyed only to appear in a matter of days elsewhere. Herr relates that whereas we were suppose to be supporting the South Vietnam government, that the corrupt bribe-hungry government could hardly maintain a police force in Saigon. As Herr says, all this means is that the country could not be saved, only destroyed. Herr's observations on racial relationships and tensions are fascinating. He relates how black and white soldiers supported each other in the field under hardships. He also relates what a blow the death of Martin Luther King Jr. was to the black servicemen. Herr does a great job of revealing the strength and patience of black servicemen who were fighting for their country in Vietnam. The chapter on the Khe Sanh base is the most focused narrative work in the book. There is a sense of paranoia as the trapped Marines wait for the assault of the Vietcong upon the base. Herr relates how the American command appeared to be implementing a strategy to draw out the Vietcong to mass troops around Khe Sanh to repeat their strategy against the French in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. However, by concentrating their forces around Khe Sanh, they offered a better target for American airpower. However the Marines felt out-numbered and completely surrounded as they endured the most brutal artillery barrage of the war. The evacuation roads were completely under the control of the Vietcong and the monsoon season had 6 more weeks to run making retreat much more difficult. Herr relates the considerable tensions that grew as the confrontation built up and reports of increased but unseen Vietcong troops increased. He is at his best as he relates the effects of this tension upon the front line soldiers. The chapter on the war correspondents is also first class literature. Herr doesn't respect all his colleagues by any means since some took the easy way out and reported only what General Westmoreland and his staff wished reported back to US citizens. Many officers felt that Westmoreland made a critical error in allowing so many correspondents to observe the war and report back their observations to an American public that had cognitive dissonance trying to interpret the chaos and horror. However he does observe that the bravest correspondents tended to be the most compassionate. I found the sections on photographer Sean Flynn, son of actor Errol Flynn, to be an interesting observation of the role of the correspondent under war conditions. Herr conveys the sense of the time with the mix of contemporary culture that the young Marines experienced including the works of Jim Morrison and the Doors, Jimmy Hendrix, and others. The cultural context of the war and times permeated both the United States and Vietnam and Herr captures this background perfectly. I would end this review with one image and one quotation. Herr relates how after a village that was deemed to be sympathetic to the Vietcong was destroyed, a Vietnamese man holds his dead baby girl in his outstretched arms in the road as the Americans pass. He says nothing; he just looks into their faces and holds up the dead baby for them to see as they drive by. Herr says: "Those who remember the past are condemned to repeat it too, that is a little history joke."

I read Michael Herr's Dispatches a few years ago, right at the start of the pandemic. I had already read my way through most of America's other wars and conflicts, and I decided that 2020 was as good a time as any to start reading about Vietnam. Dispatches is a top-ranked book, so I started here, hoping it would be a good introduction or summary of a journalists experiences during the Vietnam War. It was clear to me that Dispatches is highly regarded for a good reason, but the prose is strange and the material is rather thick, and I don't remember much about what I'd read or how I'd felt while reading it four years ago. However, I spent the next several years doing a deep dive into books about the Vietnam War--books about soldiers and marines and nurses and generals and locals and VC and NVA and everybody in between. And now, I'm happy to report, Michael Herr's book makes a lot of sense and is actually quite excellent. He gives you life in Vietnam in little flashes, explaining the unexplainable through what my literature teachers in college may have called an epic tone poem. There is little true exposition or explanation of the war, but that is largely because there is no such thing. Vietnam isn't anything at all like The Civil War or World War 2--there aren't any real turning points in the history of the conflict, no real developments that help frame the story itself. There is no Normandy Beach or Iwo Jima, no Gettysburg or Battle of Atlanta. No, Michael Herr's Vietnam was nothing but one helicopter ride after another, one death after another, mass murder and injury without reason or explanation. And so, I must give it five stars for capturing the mood and the actual lack of reason for the war. Plus, Michael Herr gives us short little cameos from all of the journalists who are heroes for those of us who are Vietnam War junkies: there's Dana Stone and Sean Flynn and Tim Page and The Great Larry Burrows, all seen through the lens of a fellow journalist who was right there in the trenches with them. Magnificent. (There are obviously problems with some of the language used (I was particularly disgusted by his use of a derogatory word against African-Americans), but you know what? I'm sure Michael Herr wasn't the only journalist using that word in Vietnam.)

I was assigned this book in college a few years back as part of a Vietnam History class. The stream of consciousness writing was fairly new at the time of publishing and segments of the book are still engaging. Passages like Herr’s description of a soldier smoking a wet cigarette that sounded like wet swollen insects crackling and the visceral descriptions of the war and its chaos make the book worth reading BUT Vietnam was ages ago and the book sometimes reads like a tired trope of overused Vietnam themes. All from a western perspective. Probably more to the point of it being antiquated, it’s now 2023 and the war is 50-60yrs past. Herr reflects more of the narcissism and boomer exaggerations about the importance of their life experience and the political events of their era. Smoking a ton of weed doesn’t help either. The reality is Vietnam was not just some American playground where soldiers could travel abroad or war correspondents like Tim Page could act like morons and brag about it later. It was someone else’s country, the Vietnamese people, and you didn’t belong their in the first place. Vietnam is not mystical or exotic or terrifying. It’s the homeland of the Vietnamese people. Western perspectives, driven by US foreign policy and lots of drugs, are irrelevant. Vietnam is a country not a war, not a crisis, not a Hollywood plot line. For a better understanding of Vietnam read Neil Sheehan “After the War was Over” and Andrew X. Pham “The Eaves of Heaven”.

Great book about the reporters covering the Vietnam War.

My friend Eric, a prominent journalist in his own right, is off to Southeast Asia to retrace his illustrious father’s steps, who reported on the Vietnam War 50 years ago. In preparation for his findings, he’s having me do some reading. “Dispatches” is what he recommended, and I can see why: it’s a total assault on the senses. It’s visceral, epic, humble, bombastic, naïve and cynical all in one. And it’s laugh-out-loud hilarious. It’s not a history, of course. It’s a trip, rather. Michael Herr proudly offers a view from the lowest possible vantage point. His account may not even be 100% factual: rather than waste his time interviewing the officers, he spends all his time with “the grunts;” it’s their story he sets out to tell, and if some of it they made up, so be it. In short, if you want to find out what it FELT like to fight the war, if you want to feel the horror and the confusion, if it’s the Vietnam era “All Quiet on the Western Front” you’re looking for, then you’ve come to the right place.

Michael Herr was an excellent writer and correspondent. Using my Kindle, I was able to search the background for references and certain metaphors offered in the chapters. It made for a more complete and thought-provoking reading experience and understanding of the abject insanity spawned by global elites/powers and how it was/is manifest "on the ground". Kindle has "re-kindled" my love of reading and Dispatches was my first read.

Good read, very interesting insights. Like the other very very interesting "Once Upon a Distant War: David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan, Peter Arnett--Young War Correspondents and Their Early Vietnam" it is very much focused on the early 1960s, before the US entered the war with full force. I am looking for some book about the later, of course not - with all due respect - the memoirs of some vets (and not "We Were Soldiers once ...", but the bigger picture. Would be grateful for any useful hint.

One of the best war relates I've ever read. Human and fully involved, never cynical, nor bombastic, nor approximate in his descriptions of context, feelings, ...and wounds. A must-read about the US in Vietnam

It's like if Hunter S Thompson went to Vietnam. Love it as a history buff, provides so much insight into the conflict. Also love it as a film buff as Herr co-wrote Full Metal Jacket and the Narration for Apocalypse Now. The influence this book has had on both films is obvious once you've read it. Anyone interested in the Vietnam war and the movies it inspired should pick up this book. It's informative as any good nonfiction but written in a style that's as entertaining and creative as most fictional books. It's no wonder Hunter S Thompson and Stanley Kubrick both spoke so highly about this book.