An impressive blend of drama and history marvelously researched.
A historical account of a harrowing mountain battle during the Vietnam War.
Debut author Sly was drafted (he says “kidnapped”) into the Army only days after his graduation in 1968 from the University of South Dakota. He was assigned to the Awards and Decorations Department, which is responsible for writing accounts of notably brave conduct under consideration for commendation. He was sent to work as unit historian for Alpha Company, which had just weathered a macabre battle that decimated their ranks. When it comes to the issuance of medals, it's best to gather eyewitness accounts in the immediate aftermath of combat. Years later, now a civilian, Sly researched the battle further, even contacting some of the participants, which ultimately led to this breathtakingly fastidious record. In June 1969, after B-52s bombed a mountain called Nui Ba Den, which harbored the North Vietnamese army, Alpha Company was tasked with securing the base of the mountain in case enemy troops descended. However, a general ordered the company to aggressively ascend the mountain “dismounted”—meaning without either tanks or other military vehicles—despite objections from the company’s commanders. There were only a few ways up, and the visibility of the paths was greatly obstructed by massive boulders. Once specialized enemy snipers began picking off American soldiers, there was little they could do but retreat. The casualties were considerable, but so was the heroism of the soldiers involved. Sly carefully reconstructs the entire battle—including its tactical context and aftermath—and offers a moving account of his motivation: “Those who fought, particularly those who were killed in action, deserve to have their heroism, dedication to each other and dedication to their unit properly documented.” The writing is speckled with technical terminology and a farrago of initialisms; Sly helpfully provides a glossary at the beginning of the book that the reader will surely reference often. That grouse aside, the book is stirring and rigorous, a shining example of investigative journalism.
An impressive blend of drama and history marvelously researched.Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5320-0304-2
Page Count: 182
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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