Rating: 
Summary: Slicing through the razor grass ....
Review: "They Marched Into Sunlight" is a staggering accomplishment. Avoiding pedantry, it is one of the most powerful treatments of war and the reaction to war one can find. Compellingly structured and written with crystal clarity, it is next-to-impossible to put down. I can personally testify that it can be read in an almost-continuous stretch of fifteen hours.At one level, "They Marched into Sunlight" is a set of parallel narratives that shifts between the jungles near the "Long Nguyen Secret Zone" north of Saigon and the campus of the University of Wisconsin. Both narratives climax in the events of October 17-18, 1967. Yet the two stories -- one of ambush and a jungle of death in which 58 U.S. soldiers died (along with many Vietnamese) and the other of an anti-war demonstration that twisted into anarchy and bloody violence -- were, as David Maraniss so deftly reveals, interwoven in more ways that just being part of the same single spin of the globe. Maraniss is a master story-teller. In providing a deep reflection of the Vietnam experience, his point of view is not just that of the two isolated yet interwoven events. More important, his story is that of the individuals whose life threads led into those days and of those who survived. His spectacle of words is obviously based upon a wealth of interviews, first-hand accounts, personal letters, and more official documents. In case after case, Maraniss always seems to have captured just the right quote to allow the stories to bear witness to themselves. In a lyrical touch, the book's themes center around a poem, "Elegy" by Bruce Weigl (p. 139). This literary twist provides a philosophical foil to the hard journalism of much of the material. How do we deal with the loss suffered when "Some of them died. Some of them were not allowed to."? Both the title of the book and of this review derive from the poem. In addition to the accounts of the extraordinary ordinary people, Maraniss adds a third sequence to the main two. The third is the background of the increasing frustration within the Johnson administration to come to terms with a strategy that was not working. It is against this much larger backdrop that the stories of the soldiers and the demonstraters stand out in such sharp relief and transform into broad metaphors for the much longer stretch of time covered by the Vietnam War. There is profound power within "Sunlight" that comes with the perspective of time. The relevant events occurred more than thirty-five years ago, but they were transformational for those who experienced them and, in the case of the soldiers, survived them. Similarly, for any of us who lived through that era, "Sunlight" is a mirror in which our own memories, reactions, and transformations are reflected. It would be easy to derive a sense of fatalism from the stories of the soldiers and the protesters - that history is often fortuitous and arbitrary rather than controllable. Yet, within the relentless onrush of events, a crisis will reveal the souls of its particpants. I will carry this book in my memory for a long time.
Rating:
Summary: Book of the Year
Review: "They Marched into Sunlight" is without doubt the best book I've read this year, and should be a top contender for the '03 Pulitzer in History. Maraniss is an exceptionally skilled storyteller, a talent he displayed in abundance in his excellent Vince Lombardi biography, "When Pride Still Mattered." In "Sunlight," he chronicles two events that occurred half a world apart on October 17, 1967: the ambush of two under-manned companies of the U.S. First Infantry Division ("Big Red One") in Vietnam, and the violent clash between police and student demonstrators who were attempting to block Dow Chemical Co. (the maker of naplam) from recruiting on the Univ of Wisconsin campus. Maraniss adroitly weaves a coherent, engaging narrative from these disparate events (no easy task), producing a thoroughly entrancing work. There are many heart-rending stories depicted --- for example, Col. Terry Allen, son of the legendary Big Red One general in WWII, and Major David Holleder, a former West Point All-American, both of whom are slain in the battle. The painful dissolution of his marriage -- and the selfish perfidy and betrayal by his wife -- add special poignance to Allen's story.
We also learn of ironic coincidences ("connections," Maraniss calls them). For example, the improbable marriage between the son of an anti-Dow protestor and the daughter of a Vietnam ambush survivor. Or the significance of "knocks on wood." On the one hand, the popular Eddie Floyd song, hummed continually for good luck by a sergeant; on the other, the secret signal employed by the VC to trigger the deadly ambush. Particularly with the Wisconsin story, Maraniss presents a multitude of voices and perspectives -- administrators, law enforcement officials, protest organizers (including the self-proclaimed "resident demagouge"), bystanders and apolitical students who became radicalized by horror they witness. However, in a very large cast of characters -- I found myself continually consulting the alphabetical listing at the front of the book to keep everyone straight: "Okay, that's the girl from New Jersey, who missed her French exam . . ." -- the one voice we don't hear is students' who were denied the opportunity to interview with Dow. What did they think of the takeover of the Commerce Building? Or the decision to deploy the police to clear it? What about the trammeling of THEIR rights? What happened to them later? What careers did they pursue? The viewpoint of one or two of these students would have added to the narrative. Even in spite of that one shortcoming, "Sunlight" is a easily a five-star work, a compelling story -- actually two stories -- superbly told in the hands of Maraniss. In closing, I want to observe that it is amazing how many people with cameo roles in the Wisconsin story would go on to greater noteriety -- Melvin Laird, Lynn and Dick Cheney, Tommy Thompson, David Keene, James Sensenbrenner, to name just a few.
Rating:
Summary: Men at War
Review: "They Marched into Sunlight" tells the story of three concurrent events in October 1967: an ambush in Vietnam in which 60 American soldiers are killed, a protest against the war at the University of Wisconsin, and meetings in Washington as President Lyndon Johnson and his advisors seek a way out of the morass that Vietnam had become.
So compelling was the story of the ambush that I skipped impatiently through the author's telling of the protest in Wisconsin. This is superb writing about war. We know the individual soldiers, and we see the battle through their terrified eyes. We see also the broken bodies of the aftermath and the attempts by military brass to put the best face possible on the events by inflating the casualty totals of the North Vietnamese and declaring victory. The author adds to the power of the narrative by introducing the perspective of Vietnamese participants in the battle.
Smallchief
Rating:
Summary: SUNLIGHT
Review: "They Marched Into Sunlight," is a soulful work of non-fiction. Author David Maranis has given us a few October days in the horrible history of the Vietnam era that define the entire period. He writes with a strong sense of mission which is to chronicle the grief and glory of men at war as well as the confusion and altruism of a sector of the home-front that opposed it. Impeccably researched from primary sources, "...letters...journal entries...archival documents, and interviews...," Mr. Maraniss holds very little back as he follows the 2/28 Black Lions from disembarkation in Viet Nam through the jungle, and into battle and its aftermath - including a return of some vets to the battlefield 35 years later. We are made witness to private thoughts and public actions, and a battle scene as detailed as anything in The Iliad - a touchstone for all war stories. "They Marched Into Sunlight," encapsulates our entire Viet Nam misadventure, and is a classic look at infantry in action. In roughly alternating chapters Mr. Maraniss also takes us to Madison, Wisconsin, and with the same detail as the Viet Nam sections into the "hearts and minds," of the participants of a protest against Dow Chemical's recruitment drive on campus - a seminal action of the emerging anti-war movement. To further enrich the story, Mr. Maraniss also provides snapshots of the machinations and be-suited terror of the beltway elite as LBJ and his staff decide the course of the war; and the private lives of the families the 2/28th left at home. In October 1967 I wan an infantryman thankfully spending my time in Germany, but even from that safety I can attest to the author's grasp of the Army in all its greatness and folly. After my hitch I was an active participant in the peace movement in Chicago, and I can again attest to the veracity of his portrait of the home-front - a confusion of beliefs, tactics, and actions guided by a genuine (though often self-serving) abhorrence of the war, the politicians who started it, and in some, but not all cases, of the soldiers who fought it. War is insanity and it infects and affects the national psyche as much as its active participants, albeit in different ways. Mr. Maraniss has written an elegant and touching case study of a few days of that insanity and illuminated the entire era.
Rating: 
Summary: Arc Light
Review: "Arc Light" is a better read about the Vietnam War.
Rating:
Summary: Slicing through the razor grass ....
Review: "They Marched Into Sunlight" is a staggering accomplishment. Avoiding pedantry, it is one of the most powerful treatments of war and the reaction to war one can find. Compellingly structured and written with crystal clarity, it is next-to-impossible to put down. I can personally testify that it can be read in an almost-continuous stretch of fifteen hours. At one level, "They Marched into Sunlight" is a set of parallel narratives that shifts between the jungles near the "Long Nguyen Secret Zone" north of Saigon and the campus of the University of Wisconsin. Both narratives climax in the events of October 17-18, 1967. Yet the two stories -- one of ambush and a jungle of death in which 58 U.S. soldiers died (along with many Vietnamese) and the other of an anti-war demonstration that twisted into anarchy and bloody violence -- were, as David Maraniss so deftly reveals, interwoven in more ways that just being part of the same single spin of the globe. Maraniss is a master story-teller. In providing a deep reflection of the Vietnam experience, his point of view is not just that of the two isolated yet interwoven events. More important, his story is that of the individuals whose life threads led into those days and of those who survived. His spectacle of words is obviously based upon a wealth of interviews, first-hand accounts, personal letters, and more official documents. In case after case, Maraniss always seems to have captured just the right quote to allow the stories to bear witness to themselves. In a lyrical touch, the book's themes center around a poem, "Elegy" by Bruce Weigl (p. 139). This literary twist provides a philosophical foil to the hard journalism of much of the material. How do we deal with the loss suffered when "Some of them died. Some of them were not allowed to."? Both the title of the book and of this review derive from the poem. In addition to the accounts of the extraordinary ordinary people, Maraniss adds a third sequence to the main two. The third is the background of the increasing frustration within the Johnson administration to come to terms with a strategy that was not working. It is against this much larger backdrop that the stories of the soldiers and the demonstraters stand out in such sharp relief and transform into broad metaphors for the much longer stretch of time covered by the Vietnam War. There is profound power within "Sunlight" that comes with the perspective of time. The relevant events occurred more than thirty-five years ago, but they were transformational for those who experienced them and, in the case of the soldiers, survived them. Similarly, for any of us who lived through that era, "Sunlight" is a mirror in which our own memories, reactions, and transformations are reflected. It would be easy to derive a sense of fatalism from the stories of the soldiers and the protesters - that history is often fortuitous and arbitrary rather than controllable. Yet, within the relentless onrush of events, a crisis will reveal the souls of its particpants. I will carry this book in my memory for a long time.
Rating:
Summary: Two Book Material
Review: "They Marched into Sunlight" would be a better read if separated into two books. The military history and political analysis sections are riveting and comprehensive. I had a hard time reading about the campus protests at the University of Wisconsin, knowing that, at the same time, soldiers were being wounded, maimed, and killed in Vietnam. I for one, do not believe that the protests had a major impact on ending the Vietnam War. The war ended honorably in Janaury 1973 with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. Unfortunately, Hanoi broke those accords while the United States stood by watching in 1975. I do not care about the protests that took place in Wisconsin, but I do care about the troops that were serving in Vietnam. I was one of those troops, serving a tour of duty with the U.S. Army in 1970-71. The unit history depicited in David Maraniss's book is very good and tells a heroic story. The student protests represent those that sought easy answers. "Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valient never taste of death but once."
...............William Shakespeare
Rating:
Summary: Powerful and Compelling
Review: A beautifully written and comprehensive review of the period - that ties into the events of today. We are introduced to everything from the birth of the neo-conservatives to the misinformation that surrounds war (and other events such as protests) - causing the wrong decisions to be made for the wrong reasons. I served at Ft. Riley, Kansas in 1970 and 1971 when the 1st Infantry Division returned from duty in Viet Nam. We tend to focus on the battlefield casualties (rightfully so) but often forget the long-term effects of war on the participants that survived.
Rating:
Summary: They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace Vietnam and Americ
Review: Adult/High School-For 40 years, the Vietnam War, and its effects on American society, has been a popular topic for authors. The best of these books tend to focus on a single aspect of the conflict, a certain group involved, or a specific period of time. In that tradition, Maraniss concentrates on two events that unfolded over two days in October 1967. On the first of those days, the members of the First Division's Black Lions battalion marched into a trap in the jungles of Vietnam and paid for it dearly. On the next, a large student protest at the University of Wisconsin against Dow Chemicals, the makers of napalm, turned into a battle of its own. By picking these moments in time, while looking at events in the U.S. and in Vietnam, the author shows how the war was affecting Americans, not merely with bullets and nightsticks, but with ideas and ideals as well. One might wish that Maraniss had shown a greater willingness to take on the larger questions posed by these two events, but by bringing these disparate occurrences together and placing them in context, he has provided one of the best books to date on the Vietnam War
Rating:
Summary: A REAL PAGE-TURNER
Review: After reading Maraniss' biographies of Bill Clinton and Vince Lombardi, I expected this book to be great, and I was not disappointed. Weaving two narratives together - one dealing with the ambush of American troops in Vietnam, the other one of the first anti-war protests at the University of Wisconsin - Maraniss almost literally puts the reader right in the middle of the action in tumultuous 1967. Each story is riveting, and I was most fascinated by the fact that I was able to identify with nearly everyone in the book, whether they were a freshman protester at the University of Wisconsin or a 20-year old kid fighting in Vietnam. Maraniss' ability to convey each person's motivations and thoughts is the key to this being such a compelling book. While it will certainly be of interest to history buffs, war buffs, ex-hippies and ex-soldiers, this book really is as much about human nature and what motivates us as much as anything else. I wasn't yet born when the action in this book took place, and it was interesting for me to see what America was like 36 years ago. There are certainly many parallels to what is happening in Iraq, the decisions everyday people and people in high places are making ... The epilogue is beautiful, and gets to a central point of the book: as much as the war in Vietnam divided the country, that shared experience can serve as a bridge to bring people together, people who "fought" for America in very different ways ...
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