Fields of Fire

I came across this book while researching why the US Army (and Marines) struggled so badly in the Vietnam War. As with all the books I’m recommending here, it spoke to me of how men go to war for their duty but stay at war for their brothers.

It speaks volumes of the frustrations and contradictions of a war in which an American generation skewed to the poor and racially discriminated against was sent to fight a highly motivated army of liberation and paid the price for their obedience. And told me more about what really happened in the valleys… show more.

I expected this novel by a decorated Marine combat veteran to depict the Vietnam War vividly, and it did. But it made me feel something more profound. Bitterness and resentment pervade this story.

I couldn’t stop reading, even though the book constantly made me uncomfortable. Marines distinguished themselves in the field, but their efforts came to nothing. The novel made me realize that no matter how valiant or brilliant people are at the small-unit level, they’re on the path to angry regret if there’s intellectual abdication at the top. 

When I wrote my first book, I thought long and hard about what land combat would look like to a soldier or marine.

When my brother came back from AF tech school, he gave me the book Fields of Fire by Jim Webb (A platoon commander in Vietnam). Although it is fiction, it reads like it could be memoir, but moving smoothly from the point of view of each of the three main characters.

The characters are written so deeply and deftly that it was possible to identify with any one of them. The storytelling is so deep and immersive,… show more.