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mburnamfink 's review for:
The Only War We Had:A Platoon Leader's Journal of Vietnam
by Michael Lee Lanning
The Only War We Had is definitely in the lower tier of Vietnam War memoirs. Lanning was a platoon and later company commander with the 199th Light Infantry Brigade, and this book covers his first six months, with 1st Platoon and briefly Recon. Lanning was advised to keep a journal, and this book is resolutely day-by-day. No more than three sentences from the journal, mostly noting the tactical situation (where, who was killed), and then a few pages written in the 1980s giving the fuller context.
Junior officers did not have much time to write or wallow in self-pity. I will say that by this book, Lanning was an excellent officer; aggressive in action and highly concerned for the lives of his men. The other side is that I know almost nothing about him beyond a series of cliches. His infantry were infantry superior to the hordes of REMFs (Rear Echelon Motherfuckers) who clogged up major bases pushing paper. The Vietnamese are treated profoundly negatively, described with slurs on practically every page. He's an Aggie, deeply loves his pregnant wife, and his parents live so far out in the boonies they had to go 12 miles to a neighbor to receive a phonecall.
A handful of events stick out. Tactically, Lanning preferred to move with a small unit, because no platoon or company-sized force could ever be quiet enough to surprise the Viet Cong. In one such reconnaissance, his six men ran into a three-sided ambush of substantially more Viet Cong and fired literally every bullet they had before withdrawing under teargas grenades. Heavy fire prevent his reinforcements from coming up. There's a thin line between brave and dead. In a less salutatory moment, an ARVN officer showed up with a prostitute. Lanning deliberately made himself scarce for two hours and came back to a happier platoon that had all borrowed his air mattress for the festivities. And the endless array of fungal infections, leeches, oozing sores, and "Fever, Unknown Origin" that afflicted Lanning and the men.
War sucks. But this book doesn't have much further insight into that.
Junior officers did not have much time to write or wallow in self-pity. I will say that by this book, Lanning was an excellent officer; aggressive in action and highly concerned for the lives of his men. The other side is that I know almost nothing about him beyond a series of cliches. His infantry were infantry superior to the hordes of REMFs (Rear Echelon Motherfuckers) who clogged up major bases pushing paper. The Vietnamese are treated profoundly negatively, described with slurs on practically every page. He's an Aggie, deeply loves his pregnant wife, and his parents live so far out in the boonies they had to go 12 miles to a neighbor to receive a phonecall.
A handful of events stick out. Tactically, Lanning preferred to move with a small unit, because no platoon or company-sized force could ever be quiet enough to surprise the Viet Cong. In one such reconnaissance, his six men ran into a three-sided ambush of substantially more Viet Cong and fired literally every bullet they had before withdrawing under teargas grenades. Heavy fire prevent his reinforcements from coming up. There's a thin line between brave and dead. In a less salutatory moment, an ARVN officer showed up with a prostitute. Lanning deliberately made himself scarce for two hours and came back to a happier platoon that had all borrowed his air mattress for the festivities. And the endless array of fungal infections, leeches, oozing sores, and "Fever, Unknown Origin" that afflicted Lanning and the men.
War sucks. But this book doesn't have much further insight into that.