by Karl Marlantes, 2009
Karl Marlantes is a graduate of Yale, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, a Marine in Vietnam, awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy commendation medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals. This novel took him 30 years to write.
Second Lieutenant Waino Mellas shipped off to Vietnam to fight for his country. He leads a platoon in the jungle. His commanding officers, Lt. Col. Simpson and Major Blakely, are incompetents who by their decisions cause the deaths of many fine young men.
Matterhorn is a fictional hill in the jungles of Vietnam close to the DMZ. Mellas’ company is ordered to take position on it. They do and then they get ordered to build bunkers on it, then to abandon it. They get sent on patrols without enough water and food, and then get stranded when the choppers can’t fly in due to weather.
There are problems with immersion foot, leaches – one went up Fisher’s urethra – they couldnt’ get him out so the corpsman cut into him to get it out before it killed him (couldn’t pee). That happens in the beginning. We find out at the end, he is okay – no problems at all.
The Corpsmen (medics) are godsends and heroes helping their wounded Marines. One time when they are sent back to Matterhorn (because the North Vietnamese Army took it over when they abandoned it). They run out of water and can’t get any shipped in day after day due to fog and clouds. The Corpsman (squids) must decide which of the wounded will not make it so their IV fluid and water can go to the healthy.
They lose many of their heroes trying to re-take Matterhorn.
Mellas is certain he killed one of his own men – trying to save him but shot uphill and bullet entered his brain.
The best man of all, Hawke, the one who is the bravest, funniest, smartest, ends up in the wrong place – asleep in Cassidy’s tent – when 2 black soldiers decide to frag Cassidy – a prejudiced, mean, staff sergeant who cannot stand the black Marines, and shaved off one’s afro, busted another’s teeth out with a rifle. The blacks think he is in his tent, when it is really Hawke – a leader they love, and they frag him – throw a live grenade in the tent. It explodes and kills Hawke. That is near the end of the book.
The Marines face fear of death constantly – when they march through the jungle, they have a point man who leads the way – he has to be eyes and ears to warn his platoon – sometimes he is the first to die.
One of their men gets attacked and killed by a tiger while on watch one night.
I miss these Marines! They get under your skin. This book woke me up – I would be tired and start reading it and end up awake and reading and cannot go to sleep. It was a great book! No gratuitous sex or violence.
“Riveting” – Vince Flynn
“Unforgettable…A beautifully crafted novel…filled with jungle heroism, crackerjack inventiveness, mud, blood, brotherhood, hatred, healing, terror, bureaucracy, politics, unfathomable waste, and unfathomable love.” Christina Robb
On the title page, author writes something like: Novels need villains and heroes…I had the honor of serving under 2 very fine battalion commanders, one of whom was killed in action, and their superb S-3, a crackerjack infantry officer. This is to contrast with the 2 battalion commanders in the novel, Blakely and Simpson, and their racist S-3, Cassidy.