This review is long and completely full of spoilers. You have been warned. For those wondering why I would ever read the Rambo book, please know that it was a challenge book from my friend George. We have kidded each other about Rambo for years now, and it was finally time to put my book where my mouth resides. I vaguely remember the movies. They used to play on base TV pretty regularly when I was a child. But most of what I remember is Rambo coming out of the water in the black tee-shirt and red bandanna splaying bullets out his oozie. It always made me go uggghhhhh not again, when it would play.

I read a first edition hardcover from 1972 that had been rebound by the university from which it was borrowed. Any page numbers or references are for that edition and not for the millions of movie-tie-in editions that can be found in used bookstores and online.

I started reading this for the last leg of the 2019 summer edition of #24in48readathon. It is a dense slow read. I got through the first two parts (approximately 150 pages or 3/5ths the book). After that I needed a break. I constantly needed to remind myself that this book is older than I am. Not because it was far fetched but for all the stupid things that the characters do.

My dad is a vet and saw the end of Vietnam. My uncle is a vet who was drafted for Vietnam and was one of the soldiers who was never fully himself again when he came back. So in ways Rambo speaks to me, because in modern thinking this is a clear cut case of PTSD and of police overreach. It’s believable. I was thinking why don’t highschools and universities require students to read this to see what can happen with PTSD? But more on that thought later.

John Rambo is known as the kid throughout the entirety of this book. I think his real name is used less then the number of fingers I have on my right hand. Just always the kid. He is trying to find himself after the war. He knows he is not the same man after having been held as a POW. And right now the listless life suits him. We Americans treated our returning soldiers like crap coming out of vietnam. No services, no help, just please go away and hide. Vietnam was an unpopular conflict. It was protested way more than any US conflict since. I often think the vets were treated so unkind when they returned because the conflict was an unpopular one. But I believe they should have been treated better. Our government MADE people go fight. They used the draft. Yes there were draft dodgers like the one that sits in the presidential seat of the US, but most who were drafted went. People did not volunteer in droves to go like they did for the WW or even Desert Storm/Desert Shield. This is the conflict people like to forget. So instead of claiming them conquering heroes, or brave service men, we forgot, we pushed them to the side. We were horrible people.

Sheriff Teasle is just such a person. He sees the kid trying to hitch a ride, picks him up and drives him, his long hair, and crazy beard out of town. He has no need or want of someone like the kid in his jurisdiction. The kid had every right to be there. The kid had every right to walk back into town and get a burger and fries. But Teasle, wants nothing of it. He drives the kid out of town again, only for John to come walking back. This time Teasle arrests him, mainly because he can. Not because the kid has done anything wrong. Some readers may think it might be wrong for the kid to hold back his name, but that is a right all american citizens have if they are obeying all laws.

I would like to say that only in backwoods America would someone get arrested for walking through town, having less than $10 in their pocket and not having a job. Unfortunately, the US is seeing this become a problem again in 2019 as the president divides the country by race and economic standing. This is exactly what happens to the kid. He is taken to court immediately where he was sentenced to 30 days in jail or $200. His crime: vagrancy and failure to cooperate with the police.

Now is when you can really start to see the PTSD and it’s triggers. The kid is taken to jail. Teasle says the first thing he has to do is shower and get a shave and a haircut. The kids tries to warn Teasle that he does not do well in inclosed spaces. Doesn’t matter. The kid is made to stip and shower. They make him sit and start to chop off his hair. Apparently this was a frequent practice of the police at this time in US history. Ughhhh. The kid asks to not be touched. He is trying to get his emotions and actions in control. He lets slip that he has problems since the war, and Teasle doesn't believe him. Seriously, how can a Korean conflict soldier, look at all the scars on a naked Rambo and not believe that this kid was part of the war. Seriously. This sheriff is blinded by his own prejudices. The kid does okay though the hair cut, but when the sheriff comes out him with a straight razor to shave off the beard the kid is triggered and the action of this book really beings.

Normally I hate the word triggered, but that is exactly what happens. All the signs are there. Every single one of them. The kid kills a deputy, I would say accidentally, and goes on the run. All the crazy action that follows is because a sheriff who is too full of himself to ask for help, or to believe that he is wrong. And while towards the end of the book he feels for the kid, he never takes responsibility for his part in all the bloodshed that is to come. This and page 58 ends part one.

Part two puts us on a hunt through the woods. We see in alternating chapters the action. The kid running away trying to escape, and the sheriff doing all he can to make sure he maintains control of the man hunt. In turn this gets every single one of his men killed. If he would have let the state police handle it, it probably would have come to a nice clean end, but he had to push and do everything himself. This kept the kid in triggered state so that he feels he not only has to run, but he has to fight back. And not just fight back, but teach Teasle a lesson. What lesson that is, is a bit of a blurry concept. Is it don’t mess John Rambo? Is it stop judging people you know nothing about? Is it leave people alone who are leaving you alone? An argument could be made for all three. Once the kid is triggered, he does not stop until he is the only one standing. Here is my personal trigger warning. Dogs die. It’s sad, and I hate that. It’s not a Where the Red Fern Grows kind of sad, but it is very much a John Wick pissed off kind of sad.

Part two is a war between two men. One extremely well trained soldier who has been triggered to action and protecting himself, and one sherrif war hero who should have known better. It’s a lot of action, and a lot of internal thought. It’s a slough to get though, but as a reader you are gripped, who or what will die next and will the kid win his freedom.

Part three is where we loose reality. Part three is why this book is not taught in school. Part three is what ruins an otherwise brutal but intense look at a soldier in a manic PTSD episode. Teasle has made it out of the woods. He is the only survivor that went in besides the kid. In Part two Teasle did learn the kids name, and he learned in words, and in actions that the kid was a POW green beret, aka a killing machine.

We the readers get to meet Trautman in Part three. I have been told in the movie he is John’s friend. But in the book, the two do not even know each other. Trautman is the leader of the Green Berets. He trained the guys who trained John. Trautman actually comes over as proud of what the kid does. He gets to see an up close version of what skills his training gave this young kid, and how he applies them. The kids mistakes teache Trautman what holes he may have in his training program.

Teasle is barely alive in part three. He is still trying to lead. He has help from the state police he believes are incompetent, and Trautman comes on board unofficially to help the locals understand the kid and his way of thinking. I found part three extremely interesting until it becomes outlandish. Reading the kids way of thinking, his train of thoughts, etc. He has calmed down and appeared to come out of his episode. He has thoughts of turning himself in, that is until others start taking shots at him.

There are some interesting things at play in this part. It has gone out to the public that crazy things are happening in the woods, and a manhunt is on. Teasle already knows that when the public gets involved in a man hut more goes wrong that goes right, and the same thing happens in this case. The kid goes from wanting to turn himself in and get some sleep to going outright crazy. Plus there are some wild plot holes. First off where exactly did the kid get the dynamite. Stealing the cop car I get. Trying to escape I get. But launching dynamite at the sheriff's office and the court house, okay I get the thought of doing it, but actually going it. And setting the gas pumps on fire. It makes no sense to John’s character as written in the first two parts.

Part three takes a believable character study and makes it movie star outlandish. I can see why they wanted Sylvester Stallone to play the part. Rambo becomes not an ex-soldier with a traumatic experience, but a willful destroyer of a town. The first parts of this book make me think the kid is generally peaceful, and would not want to hurt those who don’t hurt him. This is shown in the seen with the old man, his grandson, and the still. The kid is running for his life, but he doesn’t harm these men. He asks for help. Okay there is a threat, but it is not a bodily threat. He never threatens to harm the man or his grandson, just to tell the authorities about the illegal still in the mountain. No harm ever. Now in part three the kid shots an old man, and sets multiple places ablaze all over town with thrown dynamite. Nope not believing it.

Until part thee I was actually enjoying this book. I was interested in rewatching the movie (which I will still do). Part three just blows everything to hell. Literally.

I often wonder how they made sequels to this book and movie. First off, almost everyone is dead. Teasle does not live, his death are the last lines. Tautman takes the top of the kids head off with the shotgun on the second to last page. How does this have a sequel?

No thinking about all the bodily damage done to the kid, who in their right mind would ever let him out of the mental hospital after all this. I guess he goes to jail, but rightfully he should be in a mental hospital. Part of me understands taking a killing machine, sending them back to the conflict to do more killing, but isn’t he also supposed to rescue people? How much trust would you need to go along with this plan. Why do they allow this for John Rambo? Would they allow this for Jeffery Dahmer or Charles Manson? I don’t think so. So why for John? Because he is the best Green Beret ever? But is that a good enough reason?

Not only that, but this franchise as 3 books, and a soon to be 5th movie that is apparently the “Last Blood”. I won't lie, I love a good action flick and it looks to be entertaining. But I am not sure I can follow the character there.

While I am thinking of how to wrap this up let's talk about the title: First Blood. Rambo’s name is not in the title, it’s barely in the book (so on that front George, I was right about a proper name in a book title and I win). But what does it mean and how does it relate to the book. To me it just does not match. It’s not mentioned anywhere in the book. And Rambo draws first blood when he guts the sheriff's deputy. It may not be as catchy, but The Kid describes this book better. Or if you want to keep it sanguine why not Blood Hills, or the Town drowned in Blood, or even a simple Blood Moon. Okay, I admit none of those are really good titles, but they better describe the actions and thoughts within the pages than First Blood. I suppose that would make a good topic for a class discussion, why choose this title. Why First Blood. Maybe they answer that in the movie, maybe it’s answered in the sequel First Blood Part 2. Maybe it’s never answered.

While I haven’t recently watched the first movie and barely remember it from my childhood, I can see why the character of Rambo has a cult following. I just wonder if it is for the right reason. I had someone say recently that the movie does so much to loose the book, I wonder if the cult hero realizes he shouldn’t be a hero. At least not in the first book. But he is neither a villain either. He is a man, a man with baggage no soldier should ever have. A man who needs help, not another battle, not another gun, and not another victim. He was a kid who has seen and lived to much. He is John Rambo.