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Summary: WOW! You can't put this book down.
Review: After reading this book I had a much better understanding of a very confusing war. The best written book I have ever read, the author truly has a gift for combining history with the story of a man's tragic life.
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Summary: Outstanding! Quite possibly the best book I've ever read!
Review: Absolutly one of the best, if not THE BEST, books I have ever read. Neil Sheehan, focusing on the actions and ideas of one man, Lt. Colonel John Paul Vann, is able to create one of the most concise and engrossing accounts of how the United States failed in Vietnam. Mr. Sheehan explores the history of the our involvement in Vietnam, from the fall of the French to our slow escalation, and along the way documents how the American people were lied to. Lied to by the American command in Vietnam, the Secretary of Defense and even the President. By focusing on John Paul Vann, a complex but brillant military leader, Mr. Sheehan shows how the common soldier, despite changes in our strategy that Vann and others tried to implement, was sacrificed to a system too ridgid to change. A must read for anyone looking to learn more about America's involvement in Vietnam.
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Summary: If We have four of him, SouthVietnam would still be alive.
Review: I am a young Vietnamese, imigrated to America in 1992. I saw many terrible things that the VC have been done in my native country. Although I haven't read the book but I saw it on TV. My father was a officer of SouthVietnamese army in central highland. I heard about Mr.Vann when he based in Banmethuot and Dalat(close to Kontum which is mention in the movie). My father said that his colleages also agreed that Mr.Vann was one of few good man, who want to win the war in Vietnam. SouthVietnam was decided into 4 regions to easy control VC. If each had one like Mr.Vann then the southVietnam wouldn't fall into VC and so American, we wouldn't lose the war.
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Summary: THE book to read to understand our stumble into Vietnam
Review: This book is part biography and part history. All of it is fascinating. John Paul Vann is a compelling and contradictory personality. He possessed an honesty and clearness of vision missing from so many of his compatriots in the early years of the war. Initially, his story serves as a shining exception to the collective delusions that were shared in the U.S. and Southeast Asia. Eventually though, Vann succumbs to the wishful thinking that pervaded policy throughout the war. The author, Neil Sheehan, excels when exposing that institutionalized "we can win this thing" attitude that sprung from calcified WWII thinking. The chapter "Antecedents to Confrontation" is THE primer on pre-sixties Vietnam history. Somehow, like America's enthusiasm for the war waned, the last chapters of the book kind of peter out as well. I am not sure if this is my sympathetic reaction to the de-Americanization of the war or if Sheehan lost interest, too. But this does not diminish the overall effect of the book. After reading this wonderful history, I will never see foreign policy, war, or the American soldier the same way.
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Summary: THIS IS THE BEST BOOK WRITTEN ON THE VIETNAM WAR HERE'S WHY
Review: John Paul Vann was a "mini-model" of America in her two Asian wars, travel with him as a young U.S. Army officer he leads by example and personally drops ammunition from a small plane to troops surrounded by the enemy in the Korean War. Follow him later as a LTC, he advises the South Vietnamese Army at the 1963 epic battle of Ap Bac, where a technical level of war pair of errors gives the VC their first victory against the U.S. war machines: the VC are operating a radio which a small plane direction finds and locates; rather than run or disperse, the VC decide to stand and fight. The U.S. pilots flying the UH-21 "Flying Banana" helicopters carrying the ARVN troops land within effective small arms range of the dug-in VC, and the M113s tracked Armored fighting Vehicles (AFVs) do not have gun shields to protect their track commanders manning their .50 caliber Heavy Machine Guns. The helos get shot to pieces upon landing, and when LTC Vann again gets in a small plane to spur the ARVN M113 commander to save the day and seize victory from the "jaws" of defeat, the force takes too long to get there by not having fascines to cross rice paddy dikes. When the M113s arrive, the VC concentrate fire on the exposed TCs and they are turned back.The loss at Ap Bac in 1963, emboldens the VC and the ARVN are routed continually thereafter, LTC Vann's Army career is destroyed. The situation deteriorates and this leads to the full-scale U.S. troop landings to fight off the VC from over-throwing the South. What is so AWESOME about LTC Vann, is he doesn't give up! He becomes a civilian aid worker and he then goes about taking apart the VC infrastructure in the villages by Civic Action and fighting corruption. Vann networks---finds allies and leading by example makes it happen. After the Tet offensive gamble decimates the VC to nothing, the provinces are secure, though back home in America public support for the war has collapsed. Now for the Communists to win, THE North Vietnames Army ! (NVA) will have to invade. Which is what they do in 1972. There, in his finest hour, Vann gets in a helicopter and single-handedly directs air strikes and U.S. military/ARVN forces to repel the NVA invasion. One man can and did make a differance! NVA General Ngo Giap, victor at Dien Bien Phu gets fired for this failure! Sadly, Vann dies in a helicopter crash. The state funeral he has opens Neil Shehann's AWESOME book which Oliver Stone should make into a movie. My conjecture is that had Vann lived, the South would not have been lost to the communists in 1975. He would have seen to it that people in Washington D.C. and the Pentagon would have not thrown away our hard-won victories in Vietnam. His loss was the turning point in the Vietnam War. I know one bitter Vietnam vet criticized this book, but needs to rethink his position: Vann is the model of the leader we need today who can network and orchestrate a victory. "The Mongols, a classic example of an ancient force that fought according to cyberwar principles, were organized more like a network than a hierarchy. More recently, a relatively minor military power that defeated a great modern power--the combined forces of North Vietnam and the Viet Cong--operated in many respects more like a network than an institution; it even extended political- support networks abroad. In both cases, the Mongols and the Vietnamese, their defeated opponents were large institutions whose forces were designed to fight set-piece attritional battles. To this may be added a further set of observations drawn from current events. Most adversaries that the United States and its allies face in the realm of low-intensity conflict, such as international terrorists, guerrilla insurgents, drug smuggling cartels, ethnic factions, as well as racial and tribal gangs, are all organized like networks (although their leadership may be quite hierarchical). Perhaps a reason that military (and police) institutions have difficulty engaging in low-intensity conflicts is because they ! are not meant to be fought by institutions. The lesson: Institutions can be defeated by networks, and it may take networks to counter networks. The future may belong to whoever masters the network form." "Cyberwar is coming" by John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, International Policy Department RAND These guys are right on target at the source of our temporary loss in Vietnam 1975-1991?. However, war is not just a lethal sporting contest among combatants, its about whose IDEAS will dominate, in the case of FREEDOM, in the end the truth has won out over communism. However, if the forces of freedom were more open-minded and networked like the enemy did, we could have won the struggle sooner on the battlefield and not just wait for cultural changes to do it for us. The men who fought in Vietnam need to know that their sacrifices did count-just ask the people of Thailand. But if we are to learn from our war there, we must not make excuses that the politicians "did this or that" when there is plenty to do at our own level within the military to network and "out guerrilla the guerilla", which is what Vann did. John Paul Vann is one of the greatest American heroes to ever live, this book is a classic, the only fault I have is the "lie" ending in the title, probably a sop to get anti-war types to read it! I would change the word to "Hope" that was lost that we need to rekindle by reading this fine book. Airborne! Mike Sparks 1st Tactical Studies Group (A)
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Summary: Outstanding introduction to the Vietnam War
Review: This book is a very good place to start learning about the history of the US involvement in the Vietnam War. It offers excellent references for further study. Aside from that, this book changed my view of the war in a revolutionary way. I was a career military officer, and I never questioned the story we were told of how the war was conducted. After reading this book; which in my opinion was NOT written from an "Anti-War" perspective; I could not help but question all of the "history" I had hitherto internalized. As a child growing up during the Vietnam War I had rebelled against the "Anti-War" culture that immersed my community. As a result there was a time when I would have dismissed this book out of hand. It now appears that there were voices of warning that I and my country should have heeded. After reading this book, the terrible errors, incompetencies and lack of ethics/conscience that plagued the Kennedy/McNamara/Johnson clique become quite plain. All of this said, the book is not without problems. To this day I cannot fathom the reason for the last parts of the book that chronicle John Paul Vann's private life and his later years. It does not connect with the first half of the book and appears superfluous. To my mind the account of John Paul Vann's womanizing are treated in an almost sensational manner and are ultimately irrelevant. Overall, however, this is one of the few books I have ever read that I could characterize as "life-changing."
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Summary: Superb! Confirms My Experiences
Review: I read this book quite some time ago and several times over. If this book upsets you it is only because the truth can sometimes hurt. I served in Vietnam and I saw things as they were and still do to this day. This book tells it like it was and while some may find it difficult to read, it surpasses other books I've read which attempt to glamorize the Vietnam War and depict soldiers as pure unsung heroes and Rambos for movie scripts. The fact is, they were unwitting victims of a faulty government policy and The Wall in Washington, D.C. is graphic evidence of their sacrifices and their slaughter by our misguided politicians and military leaders. I am another disgusted Vietnam Vet, but for different reasons and this book explains those reasons as well as any. This book is a must read for anyone who really wants to know and/or really cares to understand what happened with Vietnam.
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Summary: A thrilling, informative, and compelling read!
Review: I thought I really knew what transpired in Vietnam. Then I read Sheehan's superlative book. I have reread it several times and learn more about the "lie" each time I do. For those who have not yet read it, I challenge you to read the first chapter. If you do, you'll be hooked! Colonel Vann personifies America, warts and all!
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Summary: A very disturbing book!
Review: It's easy to get taken in by the written word. It has some authority just being there. The power of the truth, however, shines through after awhile, and you realize that what you are reading is substantially correct, especially after checking the bibliography. Neil Sheehan appears to have the test of time on his side. And if this is true, if what's described in this book is in fact how it happened, it should be required reading of everyone with any authority to commit American lives to any cause, from the President on down. The enormity of the ego-driven stupidity of a few men, from Harker to Kennedy, from McNamara to Westmoreland, from Johnson to Nixon is enough to make one sick with rage. For those of us who have spent time at the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC, reading names and letting the vastness of it engulf us, the realization of why it is there is almost too much to bear.
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Summary: The folly of Vietnam through the eyes of a tragic hero
Review: "A Bright Shining Lie" is a brilliant, if flawed, masterpiece. Journalist Neil Sheehan first made a name for himself as a reporter in part thanks to the enigmatic American Hero, John Paul Vann. Vann's story is both fascinating and tragic. His military career was seemingly derailed by his attempts to tell the truth about the war during the advisor period (1962-64), but in fact it was his personal indiscretions that did him in. The book was the work of a lifetime for Sheehan (taking him many years to complete) and it shows. The only problem is that Vann's later career in Vietnam as a civilian advisor (1967-1972) gets the short shrift. Sheehan uses Vann's combat death in 1972 as a metaphor for American involvement in Vietnam. But in fact, by 1972 Vann truly believed that the South Vietnamese were winning the war and had they not been abandoned by their American allies, they might have. Nevertheless, this is a vital book for anyone who wants to understand America's lost war.
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