James Webb's 'Fields Of Fire': A Look Back At The Finest Novel To Come Out Of The Vietnam War

Gary Anderson, a retired Marine Corps colonel, offers a review in the Washington Times of what I believe is the best novel to come out of the Vietnam War, James Webb’s Fields of Fire. 

“Fields of Fire” is the finest piece of literature to come out of the Vietnam War, and it has been republished on the 40th anniversary of the original. This will give a whole new generation of readers a chance to understand the reality of Vietnam vice the caricatures that have been portrayed since the fall of Saigon in 1975.

“Fields of Fire” launched the very successful literary career of its author, James Webb, who has gone on to write a number of other best-sellers. Along the way he has also served as a Reagan administration official — most notably as secretary of the Navy — and as a Democratic senator from Virginia.

Vietnam was an infantryman’s war, and Mr. Webb (seen in the below photos) describes the day-to-day experience of a Marine Corps infantry platoon in graphic and gritty detail. It is not a fun book to read, nor is it meant to be. The soldiers and Marines who comprised the bulk of our Vietnam infantry were thrown into some of the nastiest conditions ever experienced by American warriors.

Small platoons and companies spent weeks at a time in the bush fighting the Viet Cong insurgents and North Vietnamese regulars. Their only communication with the rest of the world during these sweeps was occasional helicopter resupply to bring in more ammo, food and mail as well as to evacuate the dead and wounded — of which there were many. It was not unusual for an infantry platoon to suffer over 100 percent casualties in the course of a “grunts” tour. Although the characters in the novel are Marines, Army infantry veterans of the Vietnam War will be reminded of their own experiences.

The book seems real because it is. It is a novelized version of Mr. Webb’s tour in Vietnam. The book’s characters are real people with fictional names. The Marines are a mix of ghetto kids, hillbillies and lower-middle, middle-class youngsters whose parents could not afford to get them into college and the accompanying student draft deferment. Most did not want to be there, but they got very good at what they did.

… Mr. Webb was one of the most highly decorated Marine Corps officers to come out of Vietnam. The fact that the survivors of his platoon — and later his company — remain close to him is a tribute to his leadership skills. This reissue of the book will introduce a new generation of military personnel and their civilian masters to the reality of a war that we don’t want to repeat.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/nov/11/book-review-fields-of-war-by-james-webb/

You can read also read my Washington Times piece on the Vietnam War via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/31/vietnam-war-helped-us-win-the-cold-war/ 

My Washington Times Review Of 'The Vietnam War: An Intimate History'

The Washington Times published my review of The Vietnam War: An Intimate History, the companion book to the PBS TV series.

With the anniversary of the fall of South Vietnam to the Communist North on April 30, 1975, veterans of that war, those who lived through the era and those interested in history, may want to read Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns’ coffee-table companion book to the PBS series “The Vietnam War.”

“America’s involvement in Vietnam began in secrecy. It ended, thiry years later, in failure, witnessed by the entire world,” the book begins. “It was begun in good faith by decent people out of fateful misunderstandings, American over-confidence, and Cold War miscalculation.”

The book also reminds us that 58,000 Americans died in the war, and at least 250,000 South Vietnamese also died. More than a million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong Communists died in the war, as well as an estimated 2 million North and South Vietnamese civilians.

“For those Americans who fought in it, and for those who merely glimpsed it on the nightly news — the Vietnam War was a decade of agony, the most divisive period since the Civil War.”

… “The Vietnam War: An Intimate History” is an impressive-looking book, with a vast array of photos that accompanies a look back at the long and complicated war. Unfortunately, the companion book suffers from the same bias we saw in the television series.

… Many veterans believed in the war, many volunteered to serve in Vietnam, and many Vietnam veterans are proud of their service. Many Americans, then and now, believe we should have gone all out to win the war. Certainly, the many South Vietnamese murdered and imprisoned by the Communists after the fall of the South, and the many Vietnamese “boat people” who endured hardships and sacrifices to escape the Communists, wish we had stayed the course.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/29/book-reveiw-the-vietnam-war-an-intimate-history-by/

As I noted in my review, readers may want to read Lt. Gen. Philip Davidson’s Vietnam At War: The History 1946-1975 for a bit of balance.

https://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-at-War-History-1946-1975/dp/0195067924 

What The Jim Webb Debacle In Annapolis Is Teaching the Military

I don't always agree with James Webb. I once went back and forth with him via email during the Iraq war over an interview I wanted to do with him (he opposed the war and I supported it), and he finally declined to be interviewed.

But I respect the highly decorated U.S. Marine combat officer who served in Vietnam and went on to become the Secretary of the Navy, a U.S. Senator and a presidential candidate. He is also a fine writer and wrote one of the best novels about Vietnam, Fields of Fire, as well as another fine novel about the U.S. military and American history, A Country Such As This.

So I thought that the protest over this great American patriot receiving an award at the U.S. Naval Academy was a disgrace. 

Aaron MacLean at the Free Beacon offers a piece on the controversy.

Imagine you are a young midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy processing the news that Jim Webb—Annapolis class of '68, recipient of the Navy Cross, former senator and secretary of the Navy, former member of the Annapolis faculty, bestselling novelist and acclaimed journalist—has been forced by political pressure to decline an award for distinguished alumni at your school this week.

The most widely cited reason for his political toxicity is an article he wrote in 1979 (side note: almost forty years ago!) in Washingtonian Magazine entitled "Women Can't Fight." Never mind that he has apologized for both the vivid language of his youth and the ways in which the article made life difficult for women already in the service. ("Clearly, if I had been a more mature individual, there are things that I would not have said in that magazine article. To the extent that this article subjected women at the Academy or the armed forces to undue hardship, I remain profoundly sorry.") Never mind the fact that Webb was channeling the beliefs of the vast majority of his fellow infantrymen, if in somewhat impolitic language—or that even today, the vast majority of Marines of all grades oppose the inclusion of women in combat units. Never mind that in 1987, as secretary of the Navy, Webb opened a tremendous number of new positions in the service to women. Most of all, never mind that as of December 2015, combat units were all opened to women by order of then-Secretary of Defense Carter, overriding the objections of the Marine Corps (though not of the Army).

In other words, the proponents of including women in combat units have won. But, as the case of Webb shows, that's not enough. You have to salt the fields.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://freebeacon.com/blog/what-the-jim-webb-debacle-in-annapolis-is-teaching-the-military/?utm_source=Freedom+Mail&utm_campaign=f56e5c3b47-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_03_31&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b5e6e0