Customer Reviews

'Puts you there' better than any other account I've read - By: Nigel Collier, 23 Oct 2006
I've read probably more Vietnam memoirs than is healthy just lately & this one was perhaps the most enjoyable. The best thing about Helm's memoir is its sheer honesty & simplicity. It is a very personal account, told almost exclusively as an inner dialogue which is what gives it its great pathos & energy & makes it so engaging - even endearing. There is no great philosophy or soul searchingin this book. It doesn't come across as a particularly cathartic process for the author, he doesn't stop to question the concept of war nor to muse on its tragic ironies & injustices. He does not dwell long on the fate of his comrades nor pause to consider the war from the point of view of his adversaries. There is no reflective postscript or epilogue.

What Helms does is give a detailed, often humorous & always discontented memoir of his journey through the US marine recruiting Depot at Parris Island & then his experiences as a 'grunt'in the field. He's a disgruntled grunt, going along with the entire venture with a grim resignation that he'sin the Marines, he'sin Vietnam, he'll probably get killed & there's nothing he can do about so he may as well just get on with it because, whatever thoughts he might have about the war & his personal situation, they ain't going to count for anything. Indeed, almost as a coping mechanism, he seems to delightin playing the role of the grumpy cynic - everything is summarized & dismissed with '....my ass', and, as far as he's concerned, just about everybody can shove just about everything 'up their ass'.

He writes more or less exactly what he hears inside his head as he's talking to himself & that way gives a great insight into the daily concerns, morbid fears & petty peeves that occupy 99.9% of his thoughts. In doing so he manages to provide an exceptional 'vicarious tour of duty' (as Phil Caputo, author of A Rumor of War, put it), he lets you know exactly what YOU, the average grunt would be thinking & feeling when faced with another miserable night on a Listening Post, or having to walk along a booby trapped trail...again, or enduring another mortar barrage. The final chapters describing his wounding & recovery are particularly harrowing & well written.