Dispatches
Michael Herr
Certainly one of the most visceral descriptions of the Vietnam war,
Dispatches dispenses with politics to get to the heart of the matter . . . the
grunt in the field. Many of his compelling stories served as fodder for both
Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket as Herr co-wrote both movie scripts.
In the obscene fears and nightmares, the brutality, the insanity, the weird
excitement and thrill of life-and-death warfare, Herr captures the “near-
hallucinatory madness of war”. Its images stick in the mind like so much
shrapnel. There is no preaching in this book. Herr has no agenda other
than being as authentic in the telling as possible. He does not try to make
sense of the war. He simply presents it as the language, the sights, the
sounds and the smells of war. Herr will make you stop and mentally re-
group when he essentially argues that a war, even a war like the one in
Vietnam, it is truly a glorious thing to be involved in because, “there’s
nothing like a firefight to sharpen the experience of living.”
/tdw/
Michael Herr
Certainly one of the most visceral descriptions of the Vietnam war,
Dispatches dispenses with politics to get to the heart of the matter . . . the
grunt in the field. Many of his compelling stories served as fodder for both
Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket as Herr co-wrote both movie scripts.
In the obscene fears and nightmares, the brutality, the insanity, the weird
excitement and thrill of life-and-death warfare, Herr captures the “near-
hallucinatory madness of war”. Its images stick in the mind like so much
shrapnel. There is no preaching in this book. Herr has no agenda other
than being as authentic in the telling as possible. He does not try to make
sense of the war. He simply presents it as the language, the sights, the
sounds and the smells of war. Herr will make you stop and mentally re-
group when he essentially argues that a war, even a war like the one in
Vietnam, it is truly a glorious thing to be involved in because, “there’s
nothing like a firefight to sharpen the experience of living.”
/tdw/
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