A unique perspective on the Vietnam War, though no less depressing than the old one.
Admiring biography of two officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), which fought far better than most American histories have acknowledged.
Vietnam has a long martial tradition, writes military historian Wiest (Haig: The Evolution of a Commander, 2005, etc.), so there was no shortage of young men eager for a military career when ARVN was created in the 1950s. They fought for 25 years and suffered more than 200,000 casualties, laboring under two critical flaws. Vietnamese leaders wanted a lightly armed, mobile anti-insurgency force, but American military advisors insisted on a heavily armed, Western-style army dependent on the United States for equipment and logistics. In addition, Vietnamese rulers relied on the army to remain in power, so they chose senior officers for loyalty rather than competence. Despite this, good commanders existed, and some ARVN units fought well. Wiest tells the story of two officers, Pham Van Dinh and Tran Ngoc Hue, who led their units with courage and energy well documented in reports from American advisors who worked with them. Hue was captured during the disastrous invasion of Laos in 1970 and spent 13 years in North Vietnamese prisons. Dinh switched sides during the equally disastrous 1972 Easter Offensive and served in the North Vietnamese Army until his retirement. The author spends a great deal of time describing the fighting. While several hundred pages on small-unit actions will interest only military buffs, they present the war from the unfamiliar point of view of the Vietnamese. For example, ARVN did much of the fighting in the epic 1968 battle for the Citadel of Hue City, but saw Vietnamese contributions downplayed by American journalists more interested in depicting heroic Marines. The later offensives make painful reading as lack of good generalship and absence of American firepower undid the efforts of many brave Vietnamese soldiers.
A unique perspective on the Vietnam War, though no less depressing than the old one.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8147-9410-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: New York Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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