THE WAR ROOM CHALLENGE : OCTOBER 2024 - American Follies

I want to start this thread for October by making something pretty clear. I am unreservedly pro-American. They have done a lot of good in a difficult world and many of the progress and freedom we all enjoy today have been American driven.
That said there have been significant missteps in American policy over the post-war years which has lead to them getting involved in bloody wars far from their American homes.
You could argue that some of it was well-intentioned but the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and the Second Gulf War were costly and - it is argued by many - were follies and failures of American diplomacy.

What I will be reading:



The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

Options to consider:

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
The Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan
Dispatches by Michael Herr
The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone
A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo
Why Are We in Vietnam? by Norman Mailer
The Long March by William Styron
War Trash by Ha Jin
Valleys of Death by Bill Richardson
Kabul : Final Call by Laurie Bristow

Would the Cold War count for this month? Some of America's greatest follies were proxy wars of the conflict with the Soviet Union.

>4 amanda4242: I will allow that, Amanda, although I don't really think that the Cold War in totality could be fairly deemed a folly some of the proxy wars may well have been.

>5 PaulCranswick: In totality, probably not a folly as tension between the US and Soviet Union was pretty much inevitable, but paranoia and jingoistic policies certainly exacerbated the situation.

I will be reading They Marched into Sunlight by David Maraniss and Five Years to Freedom by James N. Rowe for this month's challenge. If I have time, I am also going to read Vietnam Diary by Richard Tregaskis. I am concentrating on Vietnam as I know very little about the conflict.

>6 amanda4242: Well, yes, there was collateral damage as a result of the cold war certainly.

>7 alcottacre: Both Korean and Vietnamese wars are blindspots in my knowledge too, Stasia.

I read Understanding Iraq by William R. Polk. This is a not so long book that gives a good history, points out cultural differences and how the war with Iraq came about and the politics of it all. It also includes a great deal about Britain and Iraq history.

The excellent book about Korean War that I strongly recommended is The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam. Excellent!!

I will also be reading The Things They Carried. For an American baby boomer, I've read very little Vietnam material.

>8 PaulCranswick: I am glad to hear that I am not the only one, Paul, but it is kind of shameful for me as I am an American. *sigh*

>10 Kristelh: Noted for future reference. Thanks, Kristel!

>2 PaulCranswick: One of my fav books. I use two stories from that book (On the Rainy River) in the college class I teach.

I will be reading Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam H. R. McMaster.

>8 PaulCranswick: >12 alcottacre: I was alive and somewhat aware of news stories during the Vietnam War, but as a Canadian most of what I remember involved draft dodgers and anti-war protests.

Lots of young American men moved to Canada as a result of that war. At the time in the US, you were old enough to be drafted before you were old enough to vote. Canada refused to extradite Americans the US wanted only for failing to show up to be inducted into the US army. Many eventually became Canadian citizens. A win for us overall.

I don't think I'll participate this month don't really have anything on the shelf right now that fits the bill.

But a suggestion for anyone looking for a good book set during the Iraq war, try Yellow Birds. I thought it was excellent.

>1 PaulCranswick: Paul, don't know if you noticed, but your picture in the thread topper doesn't come thru for me. Just a 🚫 (red circle with a slash)

I just reread your suggestions Paul. You mentioned Yellow Birds as well, cool.

You also mentioned The Sympathizer. I forgot that I have that one on digital. I might have to start that one. Thanks for the suggestion, maybe I will join

I see the header without a problem.

That's weird. In both Chrome and Edge on my laptop, it won't render, but when I looked on Safari on my phone, it comes thru just fine.

The picture in the topper comes through fine for me in Firefox on Windows.

>20 mahsdad: I'm using Chrome and can see it.

Hmm, must be something that my company is blocking. They're pretty harsh on some websites, the image must be coming from a site they don't "approve" of.

Thanks >19 Kristelh: and >21 atozgrl: for checking

>23 mahsdad: Who would approve of my pages, Jeff?!!

I can see the pic and I use Chrome, but also tried it in Edge and saw it both times.

I did not read the book I had originally planned. (>14 Tess_W:) Evidently I had marked it as on my shelf when it should have been marked WL. At this point in 2024, I'm not going to purchase any additional books. That being said, I did read Tim Obrien's If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home.

This was O'Brien's non-fiction counter-part to his fictional The Things They Carried, one of my all time favorites. However, this book seemed very lackluster. This book is tagged: memoir, non-fiction, and fiction. It is the author's personal memoir of his time spent in Vietnam. I can understand why some people tagged it fiction, as it has almost a mystical quality about it. O'Brien writes on the themes of duty, fear, and the complexities of combat. The author describes battlefield friendships and deaths. O'Brien waxed very philosophical. I was much less engaged with this book than I had hoped. 240 pages 3 stars

I've made a start on Red Haze: Australians and New Zealanders in Vietnam by Leon Davidson. It's an award winning YA nonfiction and the first chapter jumps into the 1966 Battle of Long Tan which made for compelling reading. Australia and New Zealand readily followed the USA into both the Korean and Vietnam wars as the Communist threat at the time could have spread through the Pacific.

Davidson's profile at Text Puublishing: 'Born and raised in Christchurch, Leon Davidson grew up on a diet of Second World War comics and movies, and tried to enlist in the New Zealand Armed Forces when he was eight. '

>26 avatiakh: Just finished reading Red Haze which was an informative read, not just describing how war was for the Australians, New Zealanders & US, but also for the Vietnamese soldiers from both sides. It also covers the politics & peace movements in the home countries and how the 3 countries left an unfinished war in Vietnam.
Even though it's a book for young readers there is an extensive reference list and one book I thought I'd follow up with is Deborah Challinor's PhD thesis turned book - Grey Ghosts : New Zealand Vietnam vets talk about their war.

I also have J.M. Coetzee's Dusklands out from the library, it's two novellas, one about the Vietnam War and was his first published work.

There's been a lot of mention of Tim O'Brien this month, and I thought I'd pile on some more.

Just saw that he was on Seth Meyer's show last night, I think, to talk primarily about his lastest book America Fantastica that just came out on paperback. Its not necessarily on subject here, but thought you all might find it interesting.

https://youtu.be/BXa3MvVtfIg?si=_1c5qy5tJ13yEH0u

The Sniper: The Untold Story Of The Marine Corps' Greatest Marksman Of All Time by Jim Lindsay

This was a good read. Quick to read, good story of a Marine in Vietnam who broke all the records for marksmanship in the history of the Marine Corp.
Wonderful insight into the everyday things a soldier goes through on the front lines.
This was my selection for this month. Quick read.

>28 mahsdad: Thanks for that, Jeff. I have been waiting for the paperback edition to come out over here.

The November War Room Challenge thread is up:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/365431

We will be in the trenches of Picardy as it is the "GREAT WAR".

Finally picked up Going after Cacciato again and finished it. Despite my usual avoidance of Magic Realism, and fantasy in general, I quite enjoyed this book, if that’s the appropriate verb, for its vivid evocation of the War in Vietnam. I read The Things They Carried a few years ago but did not come away with they same sense of the conflict.
PS I see that I must have read The Things They Carried before 2012, when I entered my copy on LT. Amazing what qualifies as “a few years” at a certain time of life.

>4 amanda4242: The “Cold War” doesn’t seem to me to fit the definition of “war” being used here. It was a strategy of propaganda and diplomatic resistance. When armed conflict promoted by the Soviet Union arose, as in Korea and Viet Nam, the US intervened directly.
I am currently reading The Noir Forties which looks at the social forces at play between VJ-Day and the Korean War, when the Cold War turned hot. Very interesting.

>33 booksaplenty1949: After reading The Quiet Americans, I consider the Cold War to be the biggest of all American follies; so much of what happened during was preventable, and it was the underlying cause of many armed conflicts. The book looks at WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and other conflicts through the lens of the Cold War, so I have no problem counting it for this challenge.

>34 amanda4242: I’m intrigued. Can you give an example of something that was preventable?

>35 booksaplenty1949: Like, most of it? US foreign intelligence didn't really exist before WWII, and even then it wasn't what you would call organized: field operatives with no previous experience were making up their jobs as they went along, military commanders weren't required to include the OSS within their areas, politicians were issuing directives with zero understanding of situations, and J. Edgar Hoover was actively trying to subvert the OSS and later the CIA because he wanted the FBI to be in charge of foreign intelligence. If things had been organized and properly staffed and supported, there wouldn't have been so many intelligence failures.

There were so many times in the book where I could see how the Cold War could have basically been over if people had just chosen better: if the Allies hadn't let the Soviets roll over Romania after WWII; if the US hadn't propped up corrupt regimes or toppled democratically elected governments just because dickheads in DC saw a communist plot every time someone started talking about land reforms; if the US hadn't rejected Malenkov's tentative overtures of peace after Stalin died; if someone had listened to Edward Lansdale when he told them the US should stay the hell out of Vietnam; if Eisenhower had decided to back the Hungarians when they revolted.