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Summary: Where we were...where we're going
Review: THEY MARCHED INTO SUNLIGHT is a episodic book about the moment in our history when, excuse the cliche, the people took back the power. Maraniss crosscuts between the "Black Lion" soldiers in Vietnam, about to walk into a horrible ambush through a combination of bad luck and bad decisions; and the protests against Dow Chemical on the University of Wisconsin campus. We also get glimpses inside the White House as anti-LBJ sentiment reached critical mass, and into the North Vietnamese Army. The idea of awakening and awareness recurs throughout. College students are radicalized in Wisconsin, while romantic notions of combat are pushed aside in the horrors of war.
The individual stories are most affecting, especially that of a soldier who returns alongside a former enemy to tour the old battlefield. Maraniss is a journalist, and most interested in the samll ways that people's lives were affected by those catalysmic times. Excellent.
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Summary: It was hard to put down
Review: This book is a must read for anyone who has an interest in Viet Nam and the turmoil and rending of our society that the war created. The story of the men from the 2/28 of the Big Red One, and battle that took place on October 17, 1967, is incredibly well researched and told. The book is worth reading for that alone. But the book also gives the reader a fascinating look at the dynamics of the campus protest at the the University of Wisconsin, and the students that became part of, or were what came to be called the counter culture. In October of 1967 I was just getting out of the Army after being drafted and spending a year in Viet Nam. I was in the 1st Battlion 18th Infrantry of the First Infranty Divison, which was a sister battlion of the 2/28. After getting out of the Army I enrolled at Kent State, so I experienced both sides of the battles in Viet Nam and the battles that were starting to take place on college campuses around America. From that perspective I highly recommend this book to everyone of my generation and also to our children's generation.
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Summary: A great read!
Review: This is a wonderful book that insightfully draws together two seemingly unrelated stories. The effect of the Vietnam War on Americans has often been caricatured and misunderstood. There are many books on Vietnam that claim to represent the perspectives of soldiers or protestors, and yet so few that uncover for us how those experiences overlap and echo each other. Maraniss has a great eye for details that matter, and a very even-handed treatment of soldier and protestor alike.
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Summary: Veterans' story is the best part
Review: This is a wonderful, compelling book which I wholeheartedly recommend to everyone. It is still puzzling why the author attempts to put two disconnected stories together. They have little in common but the date on which they occurred, and sometimes the author's attempt to connect them does not work.
This book slowly but surely makes you realize the huge contrast between those who served and those who ducked. On the battlefield, we read of heroism, self-sacrifice, courage and endurance in the fact of overwhelming horror and danger. On campus, we read of some pouting little sandbox controversies --missing class, mimes capering at a demonstration, etc. The author points out that 58 men lost their lives on the battlefield, while at the demonstration the worst anyone got was a superficial scalp wound -- trivial in contrast. Lives were shattered, and cut short, in the Army, but barely interrupted for more than a weekend in Madison. I'm not sure the author intended this result, but the sickening contrast gets stronger and stronger as the book progresses. The author also points out that Vietnam veterans (like myself) feel closer to our battlefield enemies (as recounted during a 2002 trip to Vietnam described at the end of the book) than we ever will to the protestors. There are chilling quotes from official North Vietnamese documents about how their determination was strengthened by the "antiwar" movement (I never could figure out how it was "antiwar" to chant, as the protestors did, "Ho, Ho, Ho CHii Minh! The NLF [Viet Cong] is going to win!" -- sounds more like rooting for the other side to me -- while their contemporaries were dying on the battlefield.)
One of the finest books I have read on the Vietnam war. It will make you think. And it is an accurate rendition of what Vietnam was like in 1967; take it from one who was there during that year.
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Summary: Well researched documentary Vietnam @ home and abroad
Review: This is an exceptionally well researched book of the state of America during the Vietnam War @ home and abroad. By overlaying a devastating ambush in Vietnam causing massive American casualties with a protest at the Univ. of Wisconsin Madison campus, Marinuss shows the full range of the American perspective as it was impacted by the war. But in addition to these two viewpoints, Marinuss also reconstructs meetings inside the White House and at Military headquarters as they debate the merits of the war and the political ramifications. Marinuss does a great job showing the anguish in the country as well as in the White House. While the total book is engrossing and filled with facts reconstructing the mood of the county, I actually found the mood of American political and military leaders most interesting. Clearly, LBJ was caught in a quagmire and regretted the course in which he had led the country. Military leaders come off much worse with continued misinformation to attempt to mislead the American public as to the status of the war. Most telling is after this horrible ambush, not only do the leaders refuse to call it an ambush, they grossly misstate the Viet Cong killed to give the appearance that more were killed than Americans and therefore it must be an American victory. This is sad as many brave Americans were slaughtered and this misinformation does them no justice. I strongly recommend this book for anyone with interest in the real Vietnam War both home and abroad. Also, I recommend this book for anyone wanting to know what it was like living in America in the 60s. One word of caution. This book is a commitment of over 400 pages in small print. While this is very well researched, if I have one complaint, the author seemed to want to tell the complete story of every character he introduced and therefore at times in can be long and slow and slightly off topic. As a final note, for any soldiers reading this, I applaud you on performing your duty in very trying times. Your sacrifice was no less than anyone in other wars and went a long way in forcing America to evaluate such conflicts prior to sending American soldiers on foreign soil.
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Summary: Memories. Memories.
Review: This period of history is particularly poignant for me.To this day my post World War II/John Wayne naivete amazes me. Thanks to those wonderful people at the Catonsville, MD draft board (#33- where were the Berrigans in 1967?) my II-S status ended the day I graduated from college and I entered the active duty Army 4 months later, on October 7, 1967. From that day until I was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant out of Ft. Belvoir in August 1968 my exposure to what was happening in the world was limited. In November 1967, our platoon sergeant awakened us at Ft. Dix and requested immediate blood donations as the 173rd was taking it bad at Dak To. That was my epiphany! I served in the Big Red One in 1969. The Black Lions were a proud unit even within the Division. In 1970 I was transferred to the 1st Air Cavalry where I dumped many drums of Dow Chemical's Agent Blue (March '70 - the order came down-no more Agent Orange)along the Cambodian border. Mr. Maraniss has brought all that back to me in a masterful job!
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Summary: Clearing the thickness in the air
Review: Walking past the Commerce Building on that October day in 1967, changed the naive sorority girl that I was then. I was a "good" student who went on to my class, but I stopped for a good while and marveled at how thick the air felt in the front of that building. It was thick with the intensity of feelings and conviction. There was no way to avoid a confrontation, the air was ready to explode. David Maraniss describes the awakening of students like me on that day. Looking back, the ongoing teach-ins, discussions, demonstrations and tear gas and the bombing of Sterling Hall, which woke my new husband and I up from several miles away, were the most valuable part of the education I received at the University of Wisconsin. Today I stand up and say no with my vote and with my actions. Maraniss says in the Epilogue, "Connections are what fascinate me, the connections of history and of individual lives, the accidents, incidents, and intentions that rip people apart and sew them back together." David not only wrote the book, but in doing so pulled the pieces together and created a safe place where the stories that had been untellable could be told. He helped sew up some very old wounds and for that I thank him. Maraniss re-awakens us to the horror of the Vietnam war and tells us how long lasting and far reaching that horror is. In the Iraq war, that is still ongoing, we are shielded from these horrors. We are again being deceived and are not being told the whole story. Maraniss has opened up the story of Vietnam and the parallels to today are striking. If only the lessons could be learned. Other reviewers have mentioned how many players in the events of 1967 are public figures today. The most recent is the naming of Charles Robb to the Presidents Commission to investigate the nation's intelligence operations.
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