Memories of a Lost War

Colonel David H. Hackworth and Eilhys England. Steel My Soldiers' Hearts: The Hopeless to Hardcore Transformation of U.S. Army, 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry, Vietnam. New York: Rugged Land, 2002. 440pp. Illustrations and glossary. $27.95.

John Laurence. The Cat From Hué: A Vietnam War Story. New York: PublicAffairs, 2002. 850pp. Map and author's note. $30.00 (cloth); $18.00 (paper).

Lam Quang Thi. The Twenty-Five Year Century: A South Vietnamese General Remembers the Indochina War to the Fall of Saigon. Denton, Tex.: University of North Texas Press, 2001. 432pp. Illustrations, notes, glossary, and index. $32.95.

Twenty-seven years after the fall of Saigon, memories of the Vietnam War remain vivid among those who served there. It was an all-consuming struggle, and those who were involved in it still feel compelled to tell their stories, to try to make sense of their experiences and to try to justify all of the sacrifices for what was, on the American and South Vietnamese side, a lost cause. John Laurence, who served three tours in South Vietnam as a reporter for CBS News, found that, in the years after he left in 1970, the war became an "obsession" (p. 88). The writing of his massive memoir helped him "unravel the colossal tangle of memories knotted in my mind" and to "expel the demons that made my war go on and on" (p. 88). Lam Quang Thi, a general in the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam), watched his army and nation collapse and eventually felt compelled to tell the story of what he still views as a noble cause. He believes that the French and American wars in Vietnam, despite their failures, "bought time for the Free World to regroup, marshall its energy, and to finally win the Cold War" (p. 4). David Hackworth, a career soldier, cannot "hold back my memories of Vietnam: the stench of swampy Mekong paddies, the angry snap of AK-47 rounds, the crump of incoming mortars; the billowing red and yellow flames of exploding napalm; the sour smell of gunpowder drifting in the black smoke; and the one-million-candlelight flares lighting up the battlefields where American men and boys, who knew the whole lousy enterprise was futile, fought and died" (p. i). He writes to honor his "brothers-in-arms" and to convince posterity that there was "a smarter way to fight in Vietnam" (p. ii).

Of these three memoirs, The Cat From Hué is the most poetic and introspective, a remarkable meditation on the war and evocation of its sights and sounds. Laurence traces his complex emotional reaction to the fighting and captures the light and colors of Vietnam; the faces of city people, peasants, and soldiers; the sounds of exploding artillery shells and of helicopters in flight; and the look of Marine bunkers at Con Thien and of smoldering fire bases near the Cambodian border after NVA (North Vietnamese Army) attacks. He draws partly on his own memories, partly on a rich collection of films, photographs, audiotapes, notebooks, and letters home to give his account an extraordinary freshness.

When Laurence first arrived in Vietnam in August 1965, he knew little about the history of the war and had no idea where it was heading. Impressionable and idealistic, he was a patriotic young American who had faith in the nation's leaders and its cause. The Americans pouring into South Vietnam seemed like "warrior giants from another planet" with their energy, material bounty, and confidence in a quick victory (p. 133). Laurence was impressed with the efficiency of Marine officers and believed that the American Army's "superior firepower and mobility would prevail" (p. 135). He and his CBS camera crew were part of the American team in Vietnam, there to chronicle the success of American arms; they took it for granted that the "cause was honorable, that the result would be successful" (p. 146).

Doubts, however, were soon raised.As Laurence...