Rating: 
Summary: Stunning
Review: Neil Sheehan doesn't pull any punches in his tale of John Paul Vann and the Vietnam War. I was originally given this book as an assignment in a college class on the Vietnam Conflict and found myself sucked into the narrative from the first page.Sheehan describes Vann's interactions with the local Montignards and the US Military Assistance Command in detail. Blunt and brutal...this is the REAL story of what happened including information on Laos, Cambodia, and the atrocities of the Viet Minh. Sheehan even touches on My Lai and the events leading up to and immediately following. From the French occupation through the US withdrawl this narrative follows our involvement at an unparalleled depth. No wonder it won a Pulitzer. A must read.
Rating:
Summary: found this book fascinating
Review: This book served as a great introduction to the complex issues facing U.S. forces in Vietnam. After the recent attention to civilian suffering in Iraq, you are staggered to read about the extent of devastation of the Vietnamese population during the war. A fairly long book that breezes by.
Rating:
Summary: Read and Learn
Review: If you read the history of our involment in Vietnam.First by financing the abortive repatreation of Vietnam by the French.My god how shamefull that we should have bank rolled those gutless sob's.Then by backing Diem in the South,we inadvertantly set in course the Black hole we would eventually fall into by 64.One of the most compelling to me at least parts of the book was the Action report that Vann gave during the Battle of Ac Bac.The futility of trying to get the ARVN to attack an then defend themselves had it been published in Jan of 63 would have brought our involvment in Vietnam to a crushing halt.For I feel that there would have been few Mothers and Fathers that would have sent there Son's and Daughters off to defend a people that had no desire to fight or defend themselves.
Rating: 
Summary: Pulitzer Prize for Bias
Review: Trendy-lefty, biased and inaccurate. Compare and contrast the author's treatments of two incidents during the war. (1) the deliberate planned massacre in Hue during the Tet Offensive of about 5,000 innocent civilians by the VC and NVA (as this was done according to official policy, no one has ever been called to account for it). The author brushes this off as essentially bad for public relations for the VC/NVA. (2) The My Lai massacre of several hundred innocent Vietnamese civilians, an unusual aberration, contrary to strict US rules of engagement, for which many of the guilty were tried and punished for war crimes. Sheehan raves on and on about this and tries to tar the whole US involvement in Vietnam with it. This is just one example among dozens of examples of biased, inaccurate reporting in this trashy book. From one who knows as I served there in 1968-69. Avoid; buy Guenther Lewy's "America in Vietnam" instead or see the other books in my favorites list, "Vietnam -- Can You Handle the Truth?"
Rating:
Summary: Great contribution to the historical record of Vietnam war
Review: I think a reviewer has to give this book its warranted praise for the contribution it makes to the history of the Vietnam war. Choosing to write John Paul Vann's history allowed this book to offer insight about the political and military mismanagement of the war which proved to be so costly. The author is also due great respect for the comprehensive research he obviously put into this great effort. Having praised the book and rated it highly, now let me list a couple of criticisms which may be important to readers looking for something from this book that it may not deliver. First, the book is probably longer than it needs to be to deliver its most important points. I think the author could have been more selective about what he put in the book and trimmed a couple of hundred pages without impairing its value much, if at all. I got tired of reading it, which suggests the writing could have been more engaging, particularly given what an interesting and flawed subject Vann was and how interested I am in this history. In other words, unless you are seriously interested in Vietnam war history, I'd be surprised if you finish this book. Second, I didn't feel he gave as good an explanation as he might have about what was going on around Vann during his final assignment as a civilian "general". In contrast, the author did a great job in this area for Vann's early service as a military advisor. Overall I'd call this a great historical work which is readable if your interest level is high enough.
Rating: 
Summary: Well Done, sometimes overdone... Let me knit pick two pages
Review: I applaud the research and effort put into "A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam." Yet, as well versed as Neil Sheehan is in the history of the United States in Vietnam, his writing from pages 153 to 154 make me seriously concerned about his historiography. When he begins in earnest to tear into to the latent racism of American policy, anyone with any knowledge on the subject could only acquiesce. However, when he makes statements about the racist double standard of Americans on the WWII assembly lines, I can only read with a great deal of incredulity. How a Jounalist/historian of Mr. Sheehan's caliber could begin to compare or declare that "the Japs were not worse; the Germans were" (Sheehan, 153) is beyond comprehension. His tirade to substantiate his claim is simply astonishing. The fact that the Nazis were efficient in killing 6 million Jews is well known. What has been utterly neglected by American popular media are the Japanese atrocities committed in China and the Pacific. To dismiss the Japanese atrocities as "haphazard" (Sheehan, 153) is remarkable. The Japanese were as ardently racist and fascist as the Nazis. Their aim was subjugation and domination of other Asians as the comfort women can attest to. For a person of Sheehan's background on Asia, to neglect the greater number of non-combatants murdered by the Japanese in China and Indochina and the fact that the Chinese were even more disturbingly used as live human experiments for both environmental effects on the body (such as freezing) or used in the development of the Japanese biological/chemical warfare programs leave me speechless. "Haphazard"? I am not clear on how one can, in 1988 (date of the publishing), retroject moral judgments on the sentiment of the American assembly-line workers. Did Germany attack the US unannounced in December 1941? One can see how in September 2001 the ire of a nation is rallied, despite the fact that we face greater threats from other sources than merely those 'haphazardly' affected by the likes of Mr. Bin Laden. Perhaps that prove Sheehan's comment "Americans feared and hated the two foes in inverse proportion to the threat each posed" (Sheehan, 153.) I am largely in agreement with the other views propounded by Mr. Sheehan. However, to reduce the US policy in Asia to simple racism is a great disservice to all the veterans who died in the Pacific in World War II. The comments he made on the internment of the Japanese and Japanese-Americans is largely tangential. Both my mother-in-law and father-in-law were interned in the 40's and any just minded person can only see this as an aggrieving affront to the Constitution and Bill of Rights allegedly enjoyed by Americans. But Sheehan's comments "The Army had the gall to ask the Nisei of military age to fight" (Sheehan, 154) is again not with out precedence. One need only consider President Polk's demanding of Mormon leader Brigham Young to furnish troops to fight in the war with Mexico after the same government had turned a deaf ear to calls for protection against abuses against Mormon's civil rights in Ohio and Missouri. One need note the Mormons were already 'de facto exiles' with the majority forced out of American states and territories; nevertheless the troops were provided, though they were white and european emigres. This leads me to believe that Mr. Sheehan is not above race-bating to further make his case. This of course has the opposite effect on one such as myself, who is aware of civil injustices by all three branches of American government in the last 200 years (against Blacks, Sikhs, etc., but one need not be an ethnic minority, as Mennonites imprisoned during WWI prove.) Why Sheehan should think he needed to go to such lengths leaves me scratching my head, as the evidence of American stupidity in foreign policy needs no embellishment. Its chicanery and foolishness stacks appallingly tall of its own accord.
Rating:
Summary: Historical journalism and biography of the highest order
Review: Neil Sheehan's book on the experience of John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam is one of the handful of essential readings on that era. We follow the life of Vann in Vietnam and through his life see the American involvement from a unique perspective. Both as an officer and later a government official Vann was actively engaged and dedicated to the Amercican cause. The contrast between a superpowers strategy and the story of one man's involvement is wonderfully done. Biography, diplomatic history and war intertwine. The story documents the leadership's willingness to believe what they wanted to hear, Vann's attempts to illuminate the realities in the field to them and his struggle to implement what he considered the correct actions. Sheehan is an excellent writer and weaves a narrative that is informative, exciting and sometimes opinionated. His bio of John Paul Vann serves as the vehicle to expose the hopes and failures of the American involvement. An excellent telling of an American tragedy, well deserving of the Pulitzer. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A Disenchanted Soldier, but a Soldier Nevertheless
Review: Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shinning Lie is a book about John Paul Vann, an American soldier, advisor, and pacification leader who witnessed the American involvement in Vietnam from the beginning, but not to the end. Sheehan was a reporter in Vietnam who created a bond with Vann (as did several other reporters) during this time. Vann had realized that the hierarchy of military rank would not allow for him to express his displeasure with the progress of the Vietnam confrontation, through usual means, so he befriended the media for this purpose. During Vann's first of two stints in Vietnam he realized the strength of the North Viet-Minh, the weakness of the South Vietnamese regime, and the intricate blunders in which we were pursuing this confrontation. Sheehan performs Pulitzer Prize winning research and illustration as to why Vann had perceived Vietnam the way it actually had been and why America's efforts were not reaping their projected benefits. Sheehan does not pull any punches or names while explaining these blunders on all sides. In essence (this reader), got the feeling that North Vietnam was fighting a concerted Revolutionary and Civil War simultaneously while the South and the US were bungled in a mix of cultural ignorance and misguided intentions. A Bright Shinning Lie, though, is a bio-history of John Paul Vann and not necessarily a history of the Vietnam confrontation. Many of Sheehan's tough character depictions may be remnants of Vann's wizardry, decades later. Vann did have an axe to grind, as you will find in the chapter Sheehan dedicated to Vann's life and his personal exploits depict of a man who has very little regard than his own self-interests. Nevertheless, John Paul Vann was a soldier and was heroic in his efforts in the Vietnam confrontation, this book wonderfully explains these efforts and empowers the reader with a candid insight into a tumultuous chapter of American history.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book, lots of truths but only one man's truths.
Review: The Bright Shining Lie is a good book with a lot of truth about the VN war but it is just one man's truth.
Lots of details about the failings of the US & South VN leadership and S.VN armies. Not a lot about the North VN or the rest of the participants. According to Vann, the North VNese and himself are the only people who knew how to fight this war. A quarter of million of S. VNese soldiers died in this war. Did he think they all died with their tails tucked between their legs?
What about all the S. VNese generals (at least 5 that I know off), colonels and countless other soldiers who committed suicide at the end? Were they cowards as well?
Rating:
Summary: A BRIGHT SHINING LIE
Review: This is one of those books that Vietnam vets insist another one should read; you hear it referenced all the time. It is often a book a caring wife buys for her husband who was over there. Neil Sheehan obviously went through agony remembering all he could when others wouldn't do anything but forget the subject for years. For me, flying helicopters out of Vinh Long in 1966-67, just up the Mekong River from My Tho where Jon Paul Vann, Halberstam, Arnett, and the rest of the Saigon journalists found out early what the war was about, was embracing a legacy these remarkable men laid down. We had all the boys and toys then, but found out later in the Tet Offensive of 1968 how misplaced our ideologies really were. Neil Sheehan stives to paint the picture how all that came about, and has been a healing factor in many VN veteran's lives for this ambiguous information. Once learned, however, it is easily seen what we could not see at the time. A fine piece of work--it'll stand the test of time.
| 
