Of Uncommon Birth: Dakota Sons in Vietnam, and: Field of Honor (review)

Of Uncommon Birth by Mark St. Pierre, the author of Madonna Swan: A Lakota Woman's Story and Walking in the Sacred Manner, depicts the lives of two young men—one white, one Lakota—from South Dakota who lead very different lives before enlisting in the military during the Vietnam War and who enlisted for very different reasons. Once in Vietnam, their experiences are very similar, marked by close friendships, doubt, bravery, and suffering. The biggest difference in their experiences: The young white man, Dale, survives; the young Lakota man, Frank, does not. Frank dies in Vietnam, earning a posthumous Silver Star for his efforts to save fellow soldiers in combat. (The book concludes with a list of all the American Indian soldiers who were killed or listed as missing in action.)

One might read such a book to look for the differences that race, class, or community made in the lives of the soldiers depicted. Dale and Frank clearly have different backgrounds and different reasons for joining the military. Dale lives a middle-class life of relative privilege, and he drops out of Iowa State University to join the military from a sense of duty to country. Also, he does not feel strong conviction about plans to become a veterinarian, and without that sense of purpose, the only reason for staying in college is to avoid the draft, which strikes him as cowardly. Dale's dilemma highlights the fact that he has so many options, whereas Frank joins in order to escape an unhappy home life and what he perceives to be a dead-end existence on the reservation—despite being the handsome lead singer of an Indian rock-and-roll band, being chased by all of the pretty girls, and performing his music on a local TV station. (The attention to detail with which both their lives is drawn is appreciated, as we see each as being influenced by and the product of various forces within society but neither conforming neatly to stereotypes.)

Dale and Frank meet at basic training and become instant rivals and friends, becoming tandem leaders of their unit. When they take the military's placement tests, though, they are treated differently. From their performance in basic training, one assumes they would have scored equally well, but Dale is encouraged to become an officer while Frank is not: "Said I scored real high, said I should think about being a helicopter mechanic or going to jump school" (72). Dale declines officer's training, but he is selected for advanced infantry training and he becomes a sergeant before arriving in Vietnam; meanwhile, Frank goes as a "grunt," a regular foot soldier. One wonders how much race influenced Dale's selection over minority soldiers such as Frank.

However, despite the different routes by which they arrived in Vietnam, their experiences there are similar. If Dale is treated preferentially stateside, he does not escape any combat in Vietnam. He and Frank serve in different units, but they see equal amounts of action, suffer the loss of friends, become leaders of their units, and serve with equal valor. One difference in their experiences that results from their different backgrounds is the source of their disillusionment. Dale is weary of the death that surrounds him and the guilt he feels for surviving. Frank feels those things, too, but his Lakota identity adds a dimension missing from Dale. He identifies with the Vietnamese as fellow natives fighting colonizing forces. He also realizes he is fighting for a country that does not treat men equally once they are out of uniform. Frank tells a soldier, "You white boys got a world to go back to. If I make it back home it will be to poverty and racial bullshit" (190).

This last point raises one of the dilemmas of St. Pierre's chosen format. Novelizing the events he...