What It Is Like to Go to War

I was still a child when the Vietnam War ended, but for some reason, I always felt it was my war. It’s what I read about; it filed the movies I watched in high school. It was the war we trained for when I joined the Marines.

Marlantes arrived in Vietnam about the time I was born. Like the three preceding it, his memoir was written with a great deal of time for reflection. I feel that this interval between the action and the recounting of it adds a level of complexity to remembrances of a very harrowing time.

The sheer number of times I cried in this book is absurd. Marlantes is a Vietnam veteran and Navy Cross recipient who chronicles his journey leaving Yale University to serve as a Marine lieutenant in Vietnam. Throughout, he chronicles the struggle to readjust to civilian society and intermingles religion, philosophy, and psychology while recounting some of his most harrowing tales of combat. If you’ve ever had a loved one or friend serve who came home different and wondered why or how you can help, this is the book to read. 

Marlantes, a second lieutenant in the Marines during the Vietnam War, makes a compelling argument for why American troops—from Vietnam through our current deployments—have struggled to reintegrate into a society that shows little interest in their travails and offers only a banal, “Thank you for your service,” to returning veterans. Whereas in the past—from the time of the Greeks through World War II—warriors were ritually cleansed and restored to society as a band of brothers, our modern methods drop men and women back into society with little time for transition. As a character says in my book: “Can… show more.