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Summary: History of the War and Vann: Both Inseperable, Unique Story
Review: This is a tremendous and unique book in perspective, detail and size. The book is both an in-depth insight of Vietnam from the pre-WWII period and a bio on the Civilian General Vann who dies in 1972 in a helicopter crash. The author tells the story of Vietnam from Vann's critical bench seat. The author was one of many famous reporters who spent a lot of time in Vietnam such as David Halberstam and Morley Safer. The book starts with Vann's funeral in Washington that includes the highest level of Nixon's defense team along with friends of Vann disillusioned with the war such as the "Pentagon Papers" leak Daniel Ellsberg. Vann is a career Lt. Colonel who retires after serving in Vietnam on a tour as a battlefield advisor in the early 60's. He loved to command combat dangerously from the sky in helicopters to observe the fighting personally and command units directly from the front. Notable for his Korean War exploits, he suddenly resigns seemingly in protest as the military brass creates an illusionary picture of how the South Vietnamese are winning the war. In reality, the South's political generals are for the main part political hacks and corrupt with the regime fearful of going far from their bases giving the initiative to the VC. The title of the book reflects what Vann refers to as the COs in Vietnam's "Bright and Shinning Lies". But Vann's true reason for resignation is not just to protest as assumed by many in the media but it is also a bright and shinning lie as reporters find out years later that Vann resigned due to significant personal issues that may have affected his career. The in depth bio of his youth is told in detail as Vann came from a broken in home in Norfolk, VA. where his mother made herself the priority to the determent of her children. Vann literally is a heroic American story of a man who comes from nothing to a most respected leader in Vietnam. He returns to Vietnam as a District leader in a Civilian capacity as part of a pacification program. By the last two years of his life he is actually a civilian general equal to two stars commanding both American and South Vietnam forces. He emerges from Westmoreland's failed battle attrition strategy to the more successful community based programs of the population intermingled with a reasonable military presence that recruits the community and stops indiscriminate bombing. Toward the end he is virtually the victim of his own success by taking too many risks and his untimely death in 1972 appears to be the final loss and noted faiure of the ARVN units that determines America's abrupt exit from the war. Vann is a unique character that knows and touches every major character in Vietnam from General Harker in 1962 to serving with the disillusioned Daniel Ellsberg. Vann's total dedication to Vietnam was a determent to his American family with an already struggling marriage with numerous personal relations in Vietnam that equal his unique energy' and personal high risk in the field. This is a big book of 800 readable pages. The only thing lacking is more maps and a quick reference page for all the acronyms and character names particularly the Vietnamese that are so prominent in the book. My neighbor that served two tours in Vietnam in the 1st Air Cavalry highly recommended this book.
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Summary: Where Have All the Young Men Gone?
Review: Neil Sheehan does an amazing job with this book. In my experience (for what that is worth), books by journalists often tend to lack depth--both analytic and empathic. Sheehan does not have this deficiency. This volume certainly deserved the Pulitzer it won. I have no doubt that John Paul Vann is the perfect focal point for the story of America's involvement in Vietnam--he was young, idealistic, committed, unaware of his own shortsightedness, and, both knowingly and not, part of a great big lie. It is amazing that, after the passage of nearly thirty years, the existence of a myriad of analyses of the quagmire of Vietnam, and the silent witness of a black granite wall in Washington bearing over 58,000 names, we still refuse to learn the lesson that the world is not as simple as we might like it to be, and that it is not so easily remade in our image. This book is a must-read for anyone starting to engage the subject of the Vietnam War, and, more generally, for those interested in how good intentions can go bad (and bad intentions only get worse). In addition, I would recommend Barbara Tuchman's "March of Folly." On a final note, those with a taste for cinematic adaptations of non-fiction might be interested in the made-for-cable movie from the 1990's of the same title. I thought it left some things to be desired, but it was, all things considered, a fair treatment of the book
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Summary: Awesome.
Review: This is a great book. Sheehan uses the story of an exceptional individual as the basis for writing a history of a good chunk of the Vietnam War. It is extremely insightful and authoritative, since the author was there and knew Vann. I would highly recommend reading Secrets, by Daniel Ellsberg, and seeing the film version of this book, starring Bill Paxton, for further depth on the topic. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
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Summary: Brilliantly told tale of America in Vietnam
Review: "A Bright Shining Lie" is a masterfully written history of America in Vietnam. Written by Neil Sheehan, a former Southeast Asian correspondent for United Press International (UPI) and later "The New York Times," this book combines a biography of John Paul Vann, considered by some to be ". . . the one irreplaceable American in Vietnam," with a spellbinding narrative of the miscalculations, blunders, and self-deceptions which marked America's decade-plus involvement in Vietnam. John Paul Vann's career in Vietnam spanned a decade, from its beginning in 1962 with Vann as U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and advisor to the South Vietnamese, to its end in 1972 with his death in a helicopter crash, Vann having become the civilian equivalent of a two-star general. During his decade in Vietnam, Vann was consistently frustrated and angry with the pusillanimous and corrupt performance of South Vietnamese forces and the frequent incompetence of American senior political and military leaders. He repeatedly urged his superiors, through normal channels and in the press, that the U.S. government could not defeat the Communist forces in South Vietnam with its military might alone. The war could only be won by the South Vietnamese with American assistance. That help, Vann recommended, should take the form of facilitating social change and providing military equipment and advice. By the time of his death, however, Vann's views had changed. After the near destruction of the Vietcong during the 1968 Tet offensive, he came to believe that America could indeed achieve a military victory in Vietnam. Sheehan explores every aspect of Vann's life with the keen eye of the best biographers. Vann is seen at his best: possessed with a first-rate intellect and a singleness of purpose which led him to rise above a childhood filled with poverty and neglect; highly patriotic and courageous; and imbued with a strong sense of professional integrity that gave him tremendous credibility at the most senior levels of the U.S. government. Also seen is Vann's darker side: his ability to manipulate others to his ends; his dark sexual compulsions (which ultimately led him to ruin his marraige and endanger his career); his callousness toward his friends and family; and his all-consuming self-centeredness. Interwoven with Vann's biography is a brilliant survey of the Vietnam conflict from the time of the French defeat at Dienbienphu in 1954 to Vann's death in 1972. Three areas of this book were especially interesting to me: first, the author's account of the battle of Ap Bac in 1963, where American advisors were first seriously bloodied by the Vietcong, and Vann's attitudes about the overall conduct of the war took shape; second, Vann's efforts, after his retirement from the Army, to get the U.S. government to change its Vietnam policy - and the political machinations within the government at work against him; and third, Vann's last months in Vietnam as the "civilian general" in charge of the mountains of the highlands and the rice deltas of the central coast, and the critical role he played in several key battles as America's involvement in Southeast Asia approached its tragic coda. "A Bright Shining Lie" is certainly one of the two best single-volume histories (along with "Vietnam: A History" by Stanley Karnow) of America's involvement in Vietnam that I've read. It's an essential book for anyone wanting to learn more about America's most regrettable war.
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Summary: A must read for anyone interested in the war in Vietnam!
Review: Sheehan tells the history of the war in Vietnam paralleled by a biography of one of its most colorful figures, the Army Lt. Col. and later civilian pacification leader John Paul Vann. Regardless of where you stand on this most controversial of all America's wars, this book is a must read to understand its background. Sheehan thoroughly researched the story with interviews of many key players. As a young correspondent he spent several years in country. The book raises many fascinating "counterfactual" history questions: what if military and government leaders had listened to Vann's early (1962-1963) assessment of the weaknesses of the South Vietnamese military and the Diem regime? The only weakness of the book is its abrupt ending. After Vann's death in a helicopter crash in 1972, the author fails to analyze later events including the withdrawal of U.S. troops by 1973 and the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. Writing in 1988, Sheehan should have reflected more on Vann's views and their relation to events that occurred after his death. Nonetheless, a must read for those who want to understand the most divisive war in American history.
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Summary: A Strange Career of the Vietnam War
Review: John Paul Vann was a highly complex individual with more than the usual weaknesses. I think that this book certainly deserved a Pulitzer, if not more. Vann was a man who did not need to lie, but did even when he did not need to. I found it very surprising how Vann's mother was just a prostitute. More than that, she was quite abusive to the men in her life. This is not just a footnote. Vann's sex problems were what led to his downfall. Vann was active in Vietnam while I was there, but at my level, that of a teenager, I had no idea who he was. Vann was quite a soldier in his own right, but I found it less odd than the author that Vann would embellish his war stories. Telling these stories has less to do with making yourself sound great than just telling an entertaining story. Sometimes it is also better to tell a fake story than one that you experienced. In my opinion, one reason we failed can be seen in the chapter regarding the battle of Ap Bac. Vann is flying overhead and trying to push the South Vietnamese into attacking the VC. They are refusing frontal assaults and casualties, which drives him nuts. Yes, I hated the ARVN too, but who says we had the "right" way to fight that war anyway, considering the casualties? Vann was a rather manipulative individual--again take a look at his mother. He was certainly brutally honest with some journalists (who in turn got sent out of Vietnam for "negative" reports), but also used them to his own end. Vann's death was long overdue, based on his taking chances. I was not surprised that his body was looted by the South Vietnamese soldiers. Welcome to my war. The North Vietnamese radio broadcasts not only took credit for downing Vann's helicopter, but condemned his "towering crimes." I only got a group condemnation. I thought it was great that Sheehan included the problems with who would meet with Nixon after he died. One of Vann's sons wanted to make an anti-war statement, but was very forcefully told not to even think of it. Vann left quite a wake in his life, with many people sorry he ever rocked their boats.
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Summary: a must read for all
Review: Being in my early thirties, as with most of my peers, I did not learn much about Viet Nam in school. This book sheds "a bright shining" light on the (mis)information and (un)intelligence that involved the United States in a "war" we had no business being a part of. This book provides a great deal of history about Viet Nam's struggles against "occupiers" from ancient China onward and a first-hand view of what was going on in there during the turmoil. There is a LOT of information in this over-700 page book, but it's worth the read and the attention one must pay to all the details.
It's also a good example of how out nation's leaders and military officials blindly engaged in war based on ego. It makes one hyper-aware to what's going on in the world now and how history could very well be repeating itself.
Om shanti.
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Summary: Excellent view of both sides of this man - Good, Bad & Ugly
Review: This is without doubt one of my favorite books - particularly the way it shows both sides of the same man. In one half I was highly impressed and somewhat in awe (not something I do easily or often). But in the second half, the author portrays a man who I found I truly disliked. We all have a Good, Bad and an Ugly side to our personalities. In this book we get to see all facets of John Paul Vann, an American hero and villan.
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Summary: Great but written poorly
Review: The author does a wonderful job researching and analyzing the subject matter of this book. However, the organization and the writing quality could use more work. I found myself often re-reading large sections to understand fully the author's point. When I did, I realized the author had much to say. This was disappointing because the subject matter is very important. I expected more from a journalist.
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Summary: My Favorite Book ever!
Review: When ever I am asked the question... what is your favorite book? I have but one single answer... A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietna by Neil Sheehan. This is outstanding biography, history, and adventure story. So well written that you just do not want it to end. And no other book buts the whole Vietnam experience into better perspective. I own a first edition, and read it when it first came out in 1988... and ever since then, have felt it was, for me, my favorite.
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