Rating: 
Summary: Candid account of the brutal reality of combat
Review: I read this in two sittings. This book consumes you. If you harbor any romanticized notions of combat, A Rumor of War will shatter them. Caputo joins the military for the same reason so many other young men do: to validate his masculinity through acts of valor. It is Caputo's story, but it could be the story of so many others. He "escapes" his banal suburban town and becomes a Marine officer. Soon the monotony of Marine training is replaced by the stark realities of combat. The reader can sense a gradual transformation of Caputo's pysche. At the onset of the conflict Caputo is transfixed and mesmerized by the carnage(he describes in lucid detail what brains look like as they spill from a man's skull). By the end of the book Caputo is savage and even bloodthirsty, completely callous and almost indifferent to the brutalities that surround him. I honestly think this book hits harder than any film can (saving private ryan, platoon, etc.) about how hellish combat is. Film can only utilize imagery, but literature, through words, more vividly captures the tattered consciousness of the participant. I thought the most disturbing part of the book was when Caputo recalls the euphoria that he felt when he finally accepted the inevitability of his own death. at that point i think he ceased to be human in the sense that most people know. the only thing that detracted from the book was the somewhat mundane descriptions of military logistics.
Rating: 
Summary: What Vietnam Was Really Like
Review: For anyone who has ever asked, "What was Vietnam really like," Marine Lieutenant Philip Caputo's book, "A Rumor of War," is a must read. In this autobiographical account of his time as an infantry officer in, "the 'Nam," he describes the experience in authoritative terms enhanced by collegiate English studies and time spent as a combat journalist. The result is the most well written account of life in an infantry platoon in Vietnam that I have ever read.Phil Caputo could have been virtually anyone in America in the early '60's. A young, idealistic, all-American boy who joined the Marines in search of adventure, and out of a patriotic desire to answer John Kennedy's challenge to, "Ask not what your country can do for you. . ." He and his platoon marched off to war to find glory and honor. What they found was, "death, death, death." Caputo takes you into the muddy foxhole with him, making you feel the heat and annoyance of the ever-present insects, and the sniper shots that all united to deprive you of the precious commodity of sleep. He takes you on patrol with them down, "Purple Heart Trail," where the main enemies were the heat, the insects, and endless mines and booby traps. The reader can feel the rage of the infantrymen who fought endless battles with an enemy that was everywhere, yet nowhere. Gradually enthusiasm turned to pessimism; pessimism to despair; and despair to rage; rage that ultimately vented itself in mindless violence against anything Vietnamese. They were then left with the heat, the insects, and guilt borne of actions taken that they would never have dreamed of a few short months before. Caputo and his enthusiastic, young, Marines could have been anyone who has ever fought: the patriots at Lexington and Concord, who later found themselves half starved and freezing at Valley Forge; or any number of Union or Confederate soldiers from Bull Run to Appomattox. They could have been "Doughboys" who went, "Over There," to "Make the World Safe for Democracy," only to find themselves "fighting" immersion foot and mustard gas in the trenches of France; or perhaps even soldiers serving under, "Ol' Blood and Guts" himself, George S. Patton; "Our blood, his guts," as the GI's said. Their stories all verify Gen. Robert E. Lee's famous quote: "War seldom avails anything to those unfortunate enough to have to fight it." A Rumor of War ranks up there with Gen. Harold Moore's, "We Were Soldiers Once and Young," and Col. David Hackworth's, "About Face." All three show how debates that raged in Washington, Paris, Saigon, and Hanoi were ultimately scored. Whether you were a "hawk or a dove," a liberal or a conservative, a professor or student, you will benefit from reading this book that answers the question authoritatively: "Hey! What was Vietnam really like?"
Rating:
Summary: Awesome book
Review: If you are intending to serve in the military, this book should be required reading. It's not pretty, in fact a bit depressing, but seriously good. Even good people do bad things during war - unlike what the movies show. Most of the other reviews have covered what I wanted to say... Seriously, this book is a must-read. In this day and age where combat operations are the norm, you can learn from people who have BTDT, and hopefully learn from their mistakes.
Rating:
Summary: Put It On Your Bookshelf!
Review: "A Rumor of War" is a darkly disturbing book. It is set in what was the early, "optimistic" Vietnam in the spring of '65 when we thought we were fighting for "freedom" and before the reality of the place hit home. Vietnam hits Lieutenant Caputo very quickly, as it must have for all Marine Corps platoon leaders. It's all right there-booby traps, mines, trip wires, leeches, foot blisters, jungle rot, constant shelling, dysentery, pigs eating corpses and cold C Rations. As a Vietnam vet, I was surprised the author never mentions RATS!, but we both know they were there too. (THEY were everywhere). Lt. Caputo's transfer to a staff job is worse than the field, so he transfers back to the bush as a platoon leader.It's more of the same-patrolling and repatrolling the same trails, the same hills, the same villes. All watched over by unsupportive and bureaucratic commanders. "RW" offers yet another look at the Vietnam War, one more pessimistic than most because so many of us felt that the years of '65 and '66 were more positive than this. I might suggest reading Joseph Owen's "Colder Than Hell" to compare the Marine experience in Korea with Lt. Caputo's. Reading the late Bernard Fall's "Street Without Joy" will make us aware, again, that perhaps there was never a time to be optimistic about Vietnam. I must admit that I constantly found myself curious as to how I would have handled many situations in "RW". How would I have measured up? What would I have done? How would the men have judged me? While the story of "RW" tends to stray at times, I found no fault since the author is relating a painful part of his past. One small point: "RW" would benefit from better maps-these are so often lacking in military books. The bottom line:"A Rumor of War" belongs on the bookshelf of any serious military book reader or anyone searching for yet another angle to the frustrating Vietnam War that affected so many of us.
Rating:
Summary: I was there...it's true
Review: I landed in "Chu Lai" with the Marines on May 7, 1965. Do you want to know what it was like? Read this book. Caputo has written the most accurate account I have ever seen -- both of the action and the emotions.
Rating:
Summary: From Camelot to Quang Nam
Review: Mr Caputo (as in TOE) takes the reader on his journey from college to war to military inquiry and part of the power of the work is how well the language illuminates that experience. It begins with clear, concise prose, as the young man is clear in his goals and what his country "stands for" , and rises to poetry of a kind as the narrator descends into a confused hell, where his goal becomes simple survival and he is uncertain about his country and its values. The narrator's journey in his early twenties, is from a sobriety to a delirium and back again but on that return, the open, trusting individual, is transformed into a cold, hardened, and cynical Nam Vet. There is some especially good analysis of "courage" (p.294) and the nature of a patrol by a platoon (p.252). The passage on 240 has a music and power which I could imagine being quoted as a classic piece of war prose/poetry in which the phrase "All secure. Situation remains the same" is echoed five times throughout the piece in a kind of fugue. Great writing which summarises the misery and the exhaustion men suffered on patrol, especially the power of the landscape and climate to overpower.
Rating:
Summary: WOW! I was impressed.
Review: I was required to read this for my Vietnam War class, yet, I have been interested in the War my father fought in for several years. My father never talked about Vietnam and when he passed away 18 years ago I was left with many questions about his silence. This book left me in tears as I read the thoughts of Mr. Caputo. This book far exceeded my expectations of a clearer more accurate picture of the American Vietnam War soldier. I will forever keep this book in my library and will refer to it lest I should forget the lives that were not only lost but also the lives that were forever changed.
To Mr. Caputo, Thank you from the very bottom of my heart for writing from yours.
Rating:
Summary: not just a classic
Review: People have compared this to "The Red Badge of Courage" and "All Quiet on the Western Front." I never liked the first and the second is fiction while this of course is a true story. To me this is THE story of infantryman in combat. I have read and reread it a half dozen times and it never fails to move me. The preface alone is wonderfully profound. After this book movies like "Platoon" and "Apocalypse Now" will seem silly and shallow. Anyone who beleives in a strong interventionist foreign policy should read this.
Rating:
Summary: Make your young men read this book!
Review: Waste: the soul of war. Mr. Caputo tells the truth and the choice is ours whether or not we learn from it.
Rating:
Summary: A Rumor of War Review
Review: I had to read this book for a history class in college. I have to say that this book gives those of us who were not around during the Vietnam War a graphic idea of what went on. In general, this book is pretty sad. What shocked me more was that Caputo went to war in 1965--back when the U.S. was supporting Vietnam. This book is a fairly good book. It isn't one I decided to keep, but you should at least read it once, to get an idea of what fighting in Vietnam was like.
|
