Why this book: Selected by my SEAL book club, largely on the recommendation of Gen Jim Mattis.

Summary in 3 Sentences:  Written in the first person from the perspective of a young man from a working class familywho had been accepted into the University of Virginia, but decides to leave and join the Marine Corps to go to Vietnam.  The first half or more of the book is the narrator describing his experiences as a young recruit arriving in Vietnam, his initial combat experiences, and then how he mentally copes with the continuing horror of losing friends who are either killed, or severely wounded, week after week while on combat patrols.  The last third of the book is about his return home and his efforts to adjust to a world that hasn’t changed much, though he has, and to deal with the trauma of his experiences in Vietnam, as he tries to get on with his life, getting married, having a career, having a family.

My Impressions: Engaging and powerful.  Treanor’s intent was two fold with this book, and he achieved it in spades with me: First, he gave the reader a visceral feeling for how a young man thrust into combat reacts and adapts to the intensity of combat and losing friends to serious injury and death, as well as the demand to inflict death and serious injury on the enemy.   Second he shares with the reader the challenges of returning to normal civilized life in America – immediately after returning home from combat, and over many decades thereafter.

In the early part of the book, Marty, the novel’s protagonist and narrator, shares with the reader his  experiences of insecurity, his need to prove himself, his fear, anger, fatigue, trauma and moral uncertainty as he spends his first weeks in combat with his platoon mates.  We are privy to his thoughts and mindset in this intense and unforgiving environment.  We experience the camaraderie and tensions in his platoon, as well as the love and mutual commitment between very young men from very different backgrounds.  The setting is a Marine Corps rifle platoon in the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam in the 1968-69 window, so we additionally are introduced to the culture of the infantry in the US Marine Corps in combat, which is very different from the military culture with which I am most familiar – the Navy SEALs.

During the combat portion of the novel, in addition to the battle scenes and the fear, anger, intensity, and emotions that Marty and his platoon mates experience, we are introduced to the frustration and anger at being constantly victimized by booby traps and snipers and threats that they don’t see, and against which they can’t fight back. This frustration is expressed toward the Vietnamese villagers who they believe with some justification to be supporting or at least passively allowing these anonymous attacks.  Marty himself almost attacks and kills a civilian in frustration, all of his platoon mates are angry and want retribution against someone – and the villagers are a convenient target,  and it is a challenge to their officers to keep this frustration and anger in check.

In the second half of the book Marty has been wounded and returns to the States, but still has some time left in the Marine Corps, which he spends partly in recuperation from his wound, and then in an administrative position in Camp Lejeune.  Here we see that Treanor – through Marty – still respects the Marine Corps and its culture, as he works for and with admirable and honorable people.  Then his enlistment is up,  he leaves the Marine Corps and has to find a career and make a living.

During the remainder of the book, Marty goes back to college, falls in love, gets married, starts a family and gets a position as a teacher in a private school at which he stays for the next 30+ years.  And during that time, he deals with being a scapegoat for anger that many Americans felt toward  US policies and behavior in Vietnam, but mostly, he is dealing with the ghosts of  platoon mates who were killed or severely wounded in Vietnam. He obviously has what is now recognized as PTSD, but he is functional and is clearly a compassionate and otherwise, well adjusted man.  But secretly, in quiet moments and in his dreams, he is still haunted by what happened in Vietnam, to his friends and platoon mates, and the apparent pointlessness of the killing and suffering.  He is angry at the US declaring “Peace with Honor’ and then essentially turning Vietnam and all he and his comrades had fought for, over to the North Vietnamese.  But Marty is very much an introvert – he keeps all this to himself, as he gets on with his life as a husband, father, teacher and member of  his community..

He reconnects with a few of the members of his Vietnam Platoon and finds that each is dealing with their experience in their own way. He is conflicted about the Vietnam memorial and refuses to attend. In the end, some 40+ years later, he  is able to grieve and come to some sort of terms with his experience – but it has been a very private affair for him – his wife and a few of his Vietnam era comrades are the only ones with whom he shares his struggles.

This is a powerful book.  Gen Mattis told me that this book hit him hard – that he had trouble getting through it – and believes it to be an important contribution to our understanding of what Vietnam did to our country.  I’ve heard that from others as well.  Mark Treanor spent many years working on this and though he had been an officer in an infantry platoon in Vietnam, he felt it important to present the perspective of a very young Marine who was sent to this ugly war still in his (late) teens, and then the decades long struggles that follow exposure to, and participation in the horror.   Treanor felt that an important function of this book was to shine a spotlight on the challenges of living with those memories and experiences   

For those interested in knowing more about the author’s perspective, I’d recommend watching/listeneing to his youtube discussion of the book here. https://youtu.be/S0tB6CONqes?si=48EySy2YHTUYT7zT

ADDENDUM: The Navy SEAL reading group met and author Mark Treanor joined us for a great discussion. We also had several former Marine guests.  Topics covered were how differently Vietnam vets were treated than recent GWOT veterans upon returning from war; the differences between SEAL and Marine and Army infantry tactics in Vietnam; SEALs operated in small numbers and had much more preparation and intelligence for their operations than young marines; whether PTSD may be in part related to the degree to which the soldier has any sense of agency or control over his fate in combat; the important role that the priest had in the book, which the author used to add a spiritual dimension to the story, and to give Marty someone with whom he could share his very personal thoughts and feelings and guilt.  Also the cathartic impact of the Vietnam memorial to those who fought.  A very good and rich discussion. 

One of the great lines of the meeting was when a retired SEAL who had been in the marine corps before becoming a SEAL told of meeting a SEAL and asking the difference between SEAL Teams and Marines. The SEAL said;  “You know how marines will go over  a hill and see a huge number of the enemy, and they’ll tell them to charge and attack, and the marines will do it?  SEALS don’t do that.”  It got a big laugh from the Marines and the SEALs in the group.