A Rumor of War

Rating:
Summary: 5 stars - I would give it 10!
Review: I was born near the end of the Vietnam War and was raised in a strict military family. As I grew up I fantasized about becoming a war hero like my Uncle who was awarded the Silver Star in Vietnam and who suffered in the jungle along with Lt. Caputo and others. After reading A Rumor of War, that image that I had was quickly shattered as I was brought out of the movies and into the reality of what Indochina was really like in the Sixties and Seventies. The author uses language that captures your five senses and immerses you into the realm of darkness and hell that the men dealt with while in the "bush". Now that I have been "enlightened" I can understand and am more compassionate for our veterans who have suffered through such a terrible ordeal. This book should be a mandatory read for anyone and especially for those who have idealized conceptions for the romance of war. It will open your eyes just as it has mine and will bring new respect when visiting places like The Vietnam War Memorial, in Washington D.C., and Arlington National Cemetary. Let peace prevail.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing!
Review: Reading this you feel like you are right alongside the patrol. It's hard to get the images out of your head and its only reading material. Imagine being there! As the author of "The Patriot's Way" I recommend this book very much!

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: Required Reading
Review: This was on the required reading list for a writing class I took last spring, and I wasn't exactly looking forward to hundreds of pages on the Vietnam War. However, Caputo's compelling account of his experiences not only held my interest, but certainly gave me a more accurate account of the Vietnam "Conflict" than any history text could have.

Rating:
Summary: quick read
Review: I've read this book 3 times. First in high school, then in college, and most recently a week ago. It's great everytime I read it. Takes place early on when the standard issue weapon was the M-14.

Rating:
Summary: "WAR IS HELL," and you are right there!
Review: To anyone who thinks of war as a glorious enterprise or some kind of Nintendo game, they should read Caputo's book. THe author himself was once an idealistic, glory seeking young man eager to participate in "a splendid little war,' but by book's end he has become an unfeeling, unremorseful and scared shell of a human being. THis may have been what kept him alive, but Caputo is angry over the deep emotional damage done to many men like himself who were thrust into a civil war and cultural revolution in a country and place we had little understanding of. Caputo manges to show us how this transformation took place. Its not a pleasant read or ride, but in the process we discover why the war was unwinnable at a price America was willing or should have paid, and what damage we inflicted on men like Caputo in putting them in such a difficult position. BUt don't read the book for any lengthy history or diatribe on Vietnam or America's policies toward it. First and foremost its a memoir of war and preparing for war. From boot camp thru training, to Vietnam and back home, Caputo keeps you riveted with descriptions of crawling through leech filled swamps, nights in the sticky jungle being consumed by insects, and witnessing the irony of pigs eating charred human corpses. When not focusing on battles, we are privy to the insanity of body counts and body bags and the tense downtime between jungle patrols, as well as the dynamics of a Marine platoon. Caputo's insights and ability to reflect back upon the events and physical and emotional carnage he inflicted upon himself and others is what makes this memoir special. There is also no small irony that Caputo was part of the first marine unit to go to Nam, and that as a journalist some 10 years later, he was one of the last to leave. Anytime I think of war as a glorious enterprise, I need only pick up this book and read a few sections. Should be required reading in war history courses! If you liked Dispatches by Michael Herr, this book is even better.

Rating:
Summary: Flashback
Review: I picked up Philip Caputo's book," A Rumor of War", several years ago. I started reading and was quickly engrossed in the detail and knowledge that was describe by Mr. Caputo. I could picture in my mind everything he was saying. Suddenly, as I was reading, I knew what was going to happen next. I said to myself that I must have read this book before. But to my delight as I read on, I realized that I had been right beside Mr. Caputo, and that he had been my Platoon Commander. I had forgot many details that came flooding back as I read on. His telling of his story, and mine, was masterful. When you read of a firefight, everyword he describes happened. The feelings of a Combat Marine Grunt lives in his words. "Rumor of War", is a must read for all Americans , young or old, If you want to know the true feel of war. A heartfelt salute to a True Marine and Platoon Commander, Semper Fi !

Rating:
Summary: a masterpiece
Review: I've read several war novels in the course of my high school education, but this has to be hands down the best one. Caputo is honest and eloquent and takes the reader into the war. I think it should be taught in high school.

Rating:
Summary: I've read it 3 times
Review: I first read it in high-school, Read it again in college, just finished reading it a third time (4 years out of school). I was as good as the first time.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best personal accounts of the war
Review: Phillip Caputo's "A Rumor of War" takes a place along with Fredrick Downs's "The Killing Zone" and Lt. General Harold G. Moore's "We Were Soldiers Once...and Young" as one of the best first person accounts to come from the Vietnam War. Caputo was not grievously wounded like Downs or Ron Kovic of "Born on the Fourth of July" fame. His scars were more of the psychological variety. He served his country faithfully and for his efforts he was nearly court-martialed. Caputo is an excellent writer (he became a journalist after the war) and his descriptions are among the war's most vivid. Not a heroic tale, unless you consider that every man who went to Vietnam and did his duty rather than following the example of our current commander-in-chief is in his own way heroic.