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mburnamfink 's review for:
Mekong First Light: An Infantry Platoon Leader in Vietnam
by Joseph W. Callaway
Callaway didn't write this book for us. He wrote it for his sons, and for himself. But it got published, and I read it, so here we are with a review.
The long introduction to this book is Callaway's childhood in Alabama, which he regards as idyllic despite segregation, and then a middle-class adolescence in New Canaan, Connecticut, which he found alienating and pointless. Callaway drifted through high school, and after flunking out of college for the third time, joined the Army because he was going to be drafted anyways. He finally found his talent at bootcamp, went to Officer Candidate School, and then Vietnam as a platoon leader with the 9th Infantry Division.
The writing is, well, serviceable is about the kindest way I can describe it. This memoir was written nearly 40 years after the events it concerns, and memory gets worn smooth. I was idly flipping through, when on page 68 Callaway describes a soldier under his command getting shot in the jaw in front of him, which was the first moment in this book with gut-wrenching immediacy. Callaway lost a lot of friends in Vietnam, and writes movingly about grief in a combat zone, but these are short passages buried in a mass of memories that have lost their finer details and generalities about the war.
It's a shame, because Callaway had some unique experiences. He was a better-than-average platoon commander, with all the duty, courage, and tactical skill that entails (note: I've railed against the six month Vietnam combat tour for officers in other places, but Callaway argues he was totally spent at the end, and continuing in command would have gotten himself and a lot of other Americans killed from sheer exhaustion. Hard to disagree with the man.) Afterwards, Callaway joined the Special Forces and had a REMF job in the midst of absolutely insane luxury and financial corruption. When he retired from the Army and went back to college, he protested the war and co-taught a class on Radical Marxism under the guidance of Howard Zinn. All of this is super interesting, but Callaway doesn't have the chops as a memoirist to bring these stories back to life in the way that they deserve. I applaud him for writing this book, but I can't honestly recommend that people beyond his friends and family should read it.
The long introduction to this book is Callaway's childhood in Alabama, which he regards as idyllic despite segregation, and then a middle-class adolescence in New Canaan, Connecticut, which he found alienating and pointless. Callaway drifted through high school, and after flunking out of college for the third time, joined the Army because he was going to be drafted anyways. He finally found his talent at bootcamp, went to Officer Candidate School, and then Vietnam as a platoon leader with the 9th Infantry Division.
The writing is, well, serviceable is about the kindest way I can describe it. This memoir was written nearly 40 years after the events it concerns, and memory gets worn smooth. I was idly flipping through, when on page 68 Callaway describes a soldier under his command getting shot in the jaw in front of him, which was the first moment in this book with gut-wrenching immediacy. Callaway lost a lot of friends in Vietnam, and writes movingly about grief in a combat zone, but these are short passages buried in a mass of memories that have lost their finer details and generalities about the war.
It's a shame, because Callaway had some unique experiences. He was a better-than-average platoon commander, with all the duty, courage, and tactical skill that entails (note: I've railed against the six month Vietnam combat tour for officers in other places, but Callaway argues he was totally spent at the end, and continuing in command would have gotten himself and a lot of other Americans killed from sheer exhaustion. Hard to disagree with the man.) Afterwards, Callaway joined the Special Forces and had a REMF job in the midst of absolutely insane luxury and financial corruption. When he retired from the Army and went back to college, he protested the war and co-taught a class on Radical Marxism under the guidance of Howard Zinn. All of this is super interesting, but Callaway doesn't have the chops as a memoirist to bring these stories back to life in the way that they deserve. I applaud him for writing this book, but I can't honestly recommend that people beyond his friends and family should read it.