The 13th Valley

The 13th Valley is a Vietnam War novel that follows closely in the footsteps of Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead. The difference is that Mailer was one of the titans of 20th century American literature, and Del Vecchio is a fine author, but he's not Mailer.

The story follows Alpha Company, part of the 101st Airborne, through an operation into the titular 13th Valley, a remote highland area near the more infamous A Shau. Our three main viewpoints are Chelini/Cherry, just arrived and anxious to prove himself; Daniel Egan, a hardcore boonierat soldier who becomes Cherry's mentor; and Lieutenant Brooks, their commanding officer, an intellectual Black man.

The story is based on Del Vecchio's experiences, he was an army combat show more correspondent and has a Bronze Star, and the best parts of the writing are the little sensor details of Vietnam. The agonizing tension of combat marches, inch by inch through torturous hilly jungle with death moments away. Damp, heat, filth, jungle rot, leeches, and all the other indignities boonierats faced. And also some of the touches of humanity, like Egan whipping up an actual feast out of C-ration ingredients.

Where the novel stumbles is in its philosophical ambitions. Brooks ponders the meaning of war, questioning his men on the linguistic origins of the conflict. Various soldiers jaw over race in America, and what it means for Black men to be fighting a white man's war. I appreciate the presence of Minh, a Vietnamese Kit Carson Scout (Communist defectors attached as translators to American units), but his arguments that the Americans should get out of his country and let the Vietnamese lose the war themselves feel more like a prepared statement than an authentic characterization.

The dialog is both a high and low point. The highs are the language of grunts, a mix of profanity, slang, and radio jargon that is utterly at a time. The lows are attempts at dialect, which I personally think is an affectation that should be left in the 19th century. At times, the characters declaim in long philosophical paragraphs, perfectly organized thesis-antithesis-synthesis that'd be hard to assemble at the seminar table, let alone on day five of a combat operation.

Del Vecchio does his best to capture the hallucinatory chaos of combat, though I'm not sure its one of those things language can capture. Cherry, in particular, becomes a beast, charging through fire, throwing grenades, killing and being saved from certain death. And while sometimes battle is cinematic, mostly death is random and awful, bolts from the blue which whittle down Alpha company. Del Vecchio is absolutely clear that every name on the black wall in Washington DC (and the unlisted millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians) was a life destroyed, dreams forever unfulfilled, a universe lost.

Speaking of dreams, the story spends a lot of time in the character's memories, mostly flashing back to women. This is realistic and generally kind of weird. Likewise, each chapter is followed by an official summary in the form of an operation report, which does help contextualize the action and show how little the most important day in someone's life matters to the Army and the history.

Ultimately, I admire the ambition, but the execution leaves something lacking. This is a solid novel, but it's a long way from its inspiration, or the first tier of novelistic memoirs, like Dispatches, Chickenhawk, or Matterhorn. show less

It's easy to appreciate this novel for the anthropological level of detail. The author fought in the war and started writing it in the early 70s, soon after he returned home. It has legitimate chops. It consciously tries to show things as they were and not as they have been portrayed. Something like a hundred pages comprise the first day alone though you don't realize it's only been one day. There is so much incident, time is compressed. Then you realize.. this is going to be a long tour. No wonder they constantly spoke of how many days were left. And this was before the fighting started. Great book.

Del Vecchio's novel the 13th valley was based on real events that the author witnessed as a war correspondet. It follows a platoon of the 101st airborne into a remote region of what was then South Vietnam--it's mission along with the other platoons in the same operation is to find and destroy a division of North Vietnamese regulars who are based and operate from there. The platoon is led by one Lieutenant Rufus Brooks--a black man who has just recieved papers from his wife asking for a divorce--but it's heart and soul reside in one Sergeant Egan--an enigmatic and complicated man who on one hand distributes drugs to his platoon but on the other is the first to walk point--the first to go down into tunnels. One of the things I found show more especially good in this novel is how Del Vecchio not only breaks down the mission--but breaks down this small unit. Some 570 pages are spent on two weeks worth of humping and tracking but it's not boring even if his boonierats might oftentimes disagree. Del Vecchio also breaks his unit down into squads--giving us names and the particular roles they play within their squads so that one comes to realize just how important each and every member of it is. Beyond all that how they act and behave towards each other. How some like Egan might act recklessly but with calculation whereas others out of fear let everyone within their squad or platoon down.

This is much more than just about the Vietnam war though. The letters from home--girlfriends missed--their philosophical discussions amongst themselves about the war--about racism often at the urging of Lt. Brooks trying to deal with his wifes rejection--the discussion about the Vietnamese themselves and their history often portrayed through the eyes of their scout Le Huu Minh--somewhat of an anarchist. Much of this is seen through the eyes of Chelini--aka as Cherry--the newest arrival to the platoon. We follow him from the beginning as Egan molds him from a raw almost gormless newcomer into a particularly ferocious and reckless warrior. A lot can be said for this novel. The characterization is excellent. It addresses a whole litany of issues that revolved around the war but also what was happening stateside at the time.

In the end the platoon finds the enemy headquarters--a series of underground tunnels. In the ensuing battle many of them die and many others are maimed. Del Vecchio keeps a tight control over the action--and does not descend into sentimentalism. In this he does his platoon justice and gives us a very fine book. show less

This was an important book for me when I read it in 1982. My brother was a marine and he had just passed away. This was his book. His wife gave it to me. It seemed to capture the experience of Vietnam for me, somone who had never been there, better than anything else I ever read. It left a lasting impact on me. A captivating, earthy read.

the 13th valley is one of my husband's most favourite books, so i read it at his request several years ago. it is an amazing book and del vecchio did a fantastic job creating a work that feels so authentic and heartbreaking. given his personal experiences, it is not surprising he was able to achieve this in the 13th valley. he knows of what he writes.

if you are interested in books about the vietnam war, i highly recommend this one. it's a much better book than the more popular [b:Matterhorn|6411016|Matterhorn|Karl Marlantes|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327972545s/6411016.jpg|6599953] by [a:Karl Marlantes|2904306|Karl Marlantes|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1286209558p2/2904306.jpg].

3853. The 13th Valley A Novel, by John M. Del Vecchio (read 2 Feb 2004) This 1982 book relates with overpowering verisimilitude a battle actually fought in Vietnam in August 1970, though all the characters and the outfit are fictional. The combat description is very intense, and the account of the really rough time the troops went thru does not make for what one can call enjoyable reading. An Internet page called Vietnam Memoirs Book Shelf calls this book "perhaps the best novel to come out of the Vietnam War." I cannot say that is wrong; my candidate for the best book on the Vietnam war is not a novel: We Were Soldiers Once . . . And Young Ia Drang: The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam, by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore, USA (Ret.) and show more Joseph L. Galloway--which won my "Best Book Read This Year Award" in 1999. I know of no better Vietnam novel than this one, and if you do I hope you will let me know. show less

Best Vietnam book along with Michael Herr's Dispatches. My war top four rounded out with The Face of Battle by John Keegan and Thomas Kenneally's Confederates,
The 13th Valley gives me a vivid picture of what I might have experienced or might now regret having experienced had the Reds not successfully mounted propaganda campaign making the war "uncool" for a boy graduating in 1968 to opt into.