I am washed in the blood of my men;
Their lifeless bodies I have lifted from the ground
And carried in my arms...
I am dead with them.
I am washed with their lives.
- Josh Hoskins, KIA Republic of Vietnam 1968 (Long Grey Line by Rick Atkinson)
Karl Marlantes' 2010 best seller, Matterhorn, is one of the better books to have been written about the nightmare, that those of us who fought there, knew as Vietnam. It is not in the same league as Tim O'Brien's If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home or his Pulitzer Prize finalist, The Things They Carried. Marlantes' could have benefitted from reading the chapter in The Things They They Carried entitled "How to Tell a True War Story". A 'true war story' is one that moves you, "if truly told, makes the stomach believe." Matterhorn did not make me 'feel' it. Oh, it was realistic and Marlantes was able to conjure up many of the sounds, sights and smells of Vietnam and the moments of sheer terror but it just did not move me. No amount of 'realism' will ever be able to render a 'true' picture of what Vietnam was like for the American soldier, much less the Vietnamese soldier. While Marlantes' writing may have been therapeutic for him, it only serves the general public as another example of the axiom, 'war is hell.' But war is much more than hell. Books that glorify war, while decrying it, by surreptitiously glorifying the soldier, only serve to prolong the American love affair with war.
Only the Dead have seen an end to War.
- George Santayana
There have been more realistic war novels written: Harry Brown's A Walk in the Sun, James Jones' TheThin Red Line, and Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. All of which make the stomach believe but none of which glorify war. And there are a host of novels that deal with surreal aspects of war including: Joseph Heller's Catch 22, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter Five, where a conscientious objector is the protagonist, and Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, where the protagonist's erection can predict a missile launch. Admittedly, when a country loses a war they tend to be more self-reflective than when they win a war, but like someone once said, "Nobody wins a war." And trust me, there is a plethora of books out there explicating the Vietnam War, looking for Jimmy Buffett's 'lost shaker of salt.' But like Tim O'Brien says:
You can tell a true war story by the questions you ask. Somebody tells a story, let's say, and afterward you ask, "Is it true?" and if the answer matters, you've got your answer. For example, we've all heard this one. Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast and saves his three buddies. Is it true? The answer matters. You'd feel cheated if it never happened. Without the grounding reality, it's just a trite bit of puffery, pure Hollywood, untrue in the way all such stories are untrue. Yet even if it did happen - and maybe it did, anything's possible even then you know it can't be true, because a true war story does not depend upon that kind of truth. Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth. For example: Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast, but it's a killer grenade and everybody dies anyway. Before they die, though, one of the dead guys says, "The fuck you dothat for?" and the jumper says, "Story of my life, man," and the other guy starts to smile but he's dead. That's a true story that never happened."
-The Things They Carried
Where Matterhorn does excel is in Marlantes' descriptions of men in war and the relationships they develop in combat. Marlantes is also able to depict what it was like being a black Marine in 1968 in Vietnam and makes clear the turmoil that existed between black and white Marines and the life-long friendships that overcame this distrust and bigotry that existed at the time. One such relationship was between a white Marine from Idaho, Williams, and a black Marine from the Mississippi delta, Cortell. Williams is troubled by Cortell 'hangin' out' with other black Marines and wants to know why. It is one of he more poignant moments in Matterhorn as the two Marines carry on a conversation about why black people want to 'be congregatin.' The conversation hinges on the story of the Ugly Duckling.
"Well, let me tell you what I think that story be about. It be about this little duck that can't grow up. Can't grow up to be a big duck 'cause he ain't a duck. But he don't know what he's 'sposed to grow up to." Cortell looked carefully to be sure he wasn't losing Williams. "I mean, you don't know what you supposed to grow up to, that make it pretty hard to grow up." He waited a moment. "So, we ain't congregating, we just hangin' out with people best we can to figure out where to is. You with me here? To ain't with the white folk 'cause we be black folk and tryin' to find to hangin' out with you chucks just a dead end for us. When I hang out with you chucks, I'm a black man first and who I really am come next. When I hang out with the splibs, I'm me first and there ain't no black man at all. It got nothin' to do with white folk. It's just the way it is. Ain't no voodoo conspiracy. We just hangin' out and movin' on best we can."
William who had been holding his breath, let it out. "Yeah. There it is."
"There it is," repeated Cortell.
- Matterhorn, p. 115
But trust me on this one, there was definitely tension between white and black Marines in Vietnam, and, as Rick Atkinson so aptly details in the The Long Grey Line, it spilled over at many different military posts. It was one of the primary reasons for the move to an all-volunteer military, which is a whole other blog! But contrary to Marlantes' proposition that it was just black Marines involved in fraggings (attempts to blow up superior officers by using fragmentation grenades) and it was just black Marines smuggling weapons back to 'the World,' there were a greater number of white Marines involved. I would imagine there are any number of Kalashnikovs (AK-47s) hidden in white supremacist enclaves all over the Northwest Washington, if Mr. Marlantes cared to check with the FBI office in Seattle. My own squadron, on its return to the United States in 1970, had various and sundry weapons confiscated by Customs officials and even the FBI was called in to investigate. But things haven't really changed much, show a white person with a gun strapped to his hip at a Presidential event and it doesn't conjure much fear, because, hey, that's his right! But show a black man with a beret on his head and the media is up in arms, I mean, hey, it's a Black Panther trying to scare the Bejeezus out of you at a polling place! I ask you, which is more dangerous, Beret or 3.57 Magnum? But it does make it easier to understand why Karl portrayed the black Marines primarily as trouble-makers.
Worst of all is Marlantes portrayal of helicopter support, a topic he should have researched a little better. As a former helicopter crew chief, I can tell you, we flew in ALL conditions. Our pilots were Naval trained and knew how to fly IFR (Instrument Flight Rules). We flew in monsoons, at night, with one engine, in the mountains, just to extract some sad bastard that had overdosed on barbituates. In Matterhorn, Marlantes' has his Marines humping up a mountain for eight days without food or water and blames it on being unable to be resupplied. I know the book is a fictional work, or as the New York Times likes to call it, "creative nonfiction," but it does contain a certain amount of outrageous bullshit. Marines not taking care of Marines qualifies as outrageous bullshit. And if Mr. Marlantes has 10 Air Medals (over 200 missions), he should know his portrayal of Marine Helicopters is absurd. I cannot count the times Marines have flown into 'hot' zones and taken fire after being assured that they were secure zones. We held the grunts, the ground Marines, in the highest esteem. They were out there everyday under the worst conditions and if there was anything we could do for them, we did it. But even though the book contains what I consider to be 'falsehoods', it is a realistic portrayal of the war in Vietnam and I would recommend, with reservations, Matterhorn. Semper Fi, Karl.
War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
-John F. Kennedy
Until Next Time,
I Remain,
Just another Zororastafarian crew-chief looking for a place to hang his sidearm 'fore Marshall Dillon puts a hurtin' on me...
