Voices from the Rear: Vietnam, 1969-1970

Rating:
Summary: A differing viewpoint on "Voices from the Rear"
Review: Having served during the Viet Nam conflict, but not in the combat theater, I was gratified to read the honest reactions and share, vicariously, experiences of someone who was there. I enjoyed the book, for all its gritty candor and blunt expression make it a valuable memoir, an unvarnished look at war as it is, not as some think it should be. I strongly recommend Voices from the Rear to readers who appreciate a vigorous examination of reality. However, I would suggest some points a recent Minneapolis reviewer may wish to reconsider.

The Minneapolis reviewer seems to vilify the author for once having been a young man, presenting that viewpoint. In what way is that a problem? Is that not the method of memoirs, reconsideration of the past? How else can lessons and examples of history be assessed?

One has to ask what are the Minneapolitan reviewer's qualifications? Is the critic an historian by training, or an historically inclined dilettante? A veteran of a unit which served in Viet Nam? A disaffected writer with a penchant for writing acerbic reviews? A recently minted Ph. D. candidate, eager to demonstrate his emergence into the field? There was no personal identification or relevant organizational affiliation (if applicable) appended; henceforward in this piece, that reviewer will be designated MR for "Minneapolis Reviewer".

Memory, photographs, and letters have always been considered valid sources, whatever their inherent biases. Many excellent and credible memoirs and histories have been written with various combinations of these sources. It is the writer's choice to incorporate these in his work, and it remains for the intelligent reader to consider their possible biases. One might rightly expect personal bias in a memoir; without such a slant, the memoir would hardly be personal. The long odds suggest that no work is entirely without some bias of viewpoint or suspicion of source. That has to be accepted in the writing arena. If the memoir writer is castigated for injecting bias, dependent on personal sources, into a memoir, what, then, would be the ultimate value of a bias-free, viewpoint-absent memoir? How else could one know an author's perceptions or opinions?

MR next mentions "three major flaws" in the Watson memoir, then proceeds to enumerate six "major flaws", as he defines them. Since MR seems dedicated to punctilious accuracy in taking Watson to the woodshed for presumed "errors of fact", MR should be no less scrupulous in enunciating precisely just how many flaws he does indeed perceive when crafting a review.

Wars are seldom tidy, as veterans of such contests will attest and as the history of warfare underscores. The best-laid campaign plans more often than not go astray, evidenced by debacles such as the charge of the Light Brigade and the Battle of the Somme. So, too, events proceed in the writing and editing world. Watson, like other competent historians, should rightly be credited with knowing that no manuscript is ever totally error-free, and wishing that he could have had just one more proofreading or editorial iteration before packing things off to the publisher. However, dread realities do creep into this business (as well as into waging war), and not every written product necessarily emerges from the publisher as a simon-pure bound copy, free of sinful editorial errors (mortal or venial).

Profanity, swearing, obscenity, execration exist in the real world, especially in the military. War invites freer oral expression, there being a suspension of most other moral, social, or cultural constraints, a natural concomitant in war. Did MR imagine some chivalric code existed in Vietnam forbidding untrammeled oral expression? Most informed readers would have grave doubts about the authenticity of books purporting to portray authentic soldierly dialogue if all profanity were expunged. Carping about obscenity misses the point of what is said versus how it is said. One should at least assume that Watson had sufficient integrity to report and to transcribe honestly what he heard. How could he do else, surrounded daily with war's argot? Watson shouldn't be condemned for having a good ear for warriors' dialogue; however reprehensible it may be thought to be, such talk occurred consistently in Viet Nam,and in countless past wars, and it likely will in future.

Whether the book's tone is whiny is debatable. Much writing about military life, especially memoirs and war fiction, has established firmly that whining, bitching, and grumbling are part and parcel of the soldiers' life, as inextricably linked with the warrior ethos as obscenity. No amount of yearning for a sanitized, politically correct martial environment is ever likely to reverse that trend.

The reviewer also writes that "Joseph Heller is able to take a much more dire situation, and less fair, and write a brilliant story. " Presumably the reviewer refers to Heller's Catch-22, a fictional piece based on Heller's experiences during World War Two. As accuracy and attention to detail are at the core of many of MR's complaints, it is only fair to note that his review might more accurately reflect this same correctitude, through appropriate choice of the past tense, as Mr. Heller passed away December 12, 1999.

Whether the title, Voices from the Rear, was an unintended double entendre will likely never be known, the richness of English vocabulary and its potential for elected or accidental synonymy being what it is; moreover, what point is served by determining if double entendre occurred, except perhaps to demonstrate a rather picayune finesse on the part of the reviewer?

As Voices from the Rear is a memoir, which the author forthrightly stated, and not a history, then MR should accept this and not insist on reviewing the book as a history and excoriating it for its shortcomings as a history.

The writer of this review, Dan W., is a librarian and a military history buff who lives in Olney, MD.

Rating:
Summary: Too many flaws
Review: Historians tend to see events from the perspective of kings and generals. George Watson, in Voices from the Rear, looks at a two-year period during the Vietnam War from the perspective of one young man drafted into the United States Army from an academic career, trained as a combat engineer, sent to Vietnam in the summer of 1969, and assigned to a personnel job in the rear echelon. That young man is the author himself, and therein lies the problem with this book.

There are three major flaws in the book, and they appear to derive from the author's sources: his memories, his collection of photographs, and his letters to his fiancée. As a historian, Watson should have some more evident skepticism regarding his sources. Memory is a particularly unreliable source of historical evidence; critical incidents may deepen one's emotions, but they may also distort objective reality. Photographs, while adding some interesting visual background information, add little relevant evidence to the story. And the letters, if they are anything like the text of the book, are likely filled with accounts of incidents filtered through the emotional screen of an angry and frustrated young man conscious of and sensitive to the unfairness of his situation.

The first major flaw in Voices from the Rear is its clear errors of fact, which are simply too numerous for one who has earned a Ph.D. in history. Many of these errors could have been avoided with somewhat more diligent research. A few examples:
(1) Headquarters, 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) was not located at Camp Evans, as Watson notes in several places, but at Camp Eagle. Camp Evans, some distance north of Camp Eagle, was the home of the Division's 1st Brigade.
(2) General George S. Patton did not carry "pearl revolvers," as Watson notes. Indeed, this myth has been so often addressed in authoritative histories that it should not need repeating. Patton carried a Colt .45 with ivory handles (and sometimes a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum).
(3) Headquarters, Military Assistance Command, was located in Saigon, not at Long Binh, as Watson writes. (The book variously places MACV in Long Binh and "Long Bien."
(4) Omission of the 3d Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, from the "other American units in the Quang Tri-Phu Bai area" will surprise and disappoint readers who served in that distinguished organization.
(5) The notion that a married soldier loses his housing allowance when his wife lives with a parent is a piece of pure fiction.
Some errors, some more obvious than others, mar the telling of the story for one who recognizes them, but they may not be readily apparent to the casual reader. At least one comment, however, bears some scrutiny: "The blacks were not being exploited any more than the whites were." One wonders if any reasonably well informed and fair-minded person can agree with such a judgment.

The second major flaw of the book is its prodigious and largely gratuitous use of obscenities. This characteristic of the book precludes its use in a class trying to understand the Vietnam experience from the point-of-view of a rear-echelon soldier. A sophisticated reader might expect some swearing, given that such language is commonly heard in barracks around the world, but the quantity of it in the book gives the impression of poor writing. One may find other examples of poor writing in the book, but they may be excused as mistakes that got past the editor or proofreader. For example, "Nancy was quite nauseous...," a gratuitous insult to someone who appears to be a hero of the story; and one may wonder how the author, in commentary rather than in quoting barracks talk, could write, "The gooks had moved ..."; this may be an editing problem or a choice by the author. The obscenities clearly reflect the choices of the author.

The third major flaw in this book is its tone. We do not hear "voices" from the rear; we hear one voice, the author's, and it grows tedious with its whining. The author notes at the end, and in passing, that the book is a memoir (presumably, rather than a history). Still, the reader can only stand so much whining and self-pity. Millions of young men have been conscripted into armies all over the world and throughout all historical time. Some barracks griping may be expected, but this book is simply too whiney. Joseph Heller is able to take a much more dire situation, and less fair, and write a brilliant story. Voices from the Rear (which itself may be an unintended double entendre) deals with a similar set of emotions, but it simply grows tedious long before the end of its 316th page.

In summary, Voices from the Rear appears more like a Mommie Dearest "get-even" book than a wartime memoir. I cannot recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: A weak voice
Review: I served in the same unit as the author at about the same time and find his recollections to be widely off the mark. Readers will get a distorted view of the 101st Airborne Division from this book.

It seems as if the author had tried to avoid military service and had a bad experience when he finally got into uniform. He should be grateful that he was selected for a job in the rear rather than being assigned to the engineer battalion, where he would have faced real danger. I lost several friends who were in the 101st at the same time. This book is an insult to their memory.