I've read this book four times, and each time I start reading, I literally can't put it down, it's spell binding and that good. His book captures the essence of a Force Recon Marine's war in Vietman. If one is of a military mindset, this book belongs in your library. If one is not of the military mindset, you will enjoy this book because of the writer's skill, he puts you in the jungles of Vietman during combat while giving you a history that the young Marines were up against. You will never get this close to the Vietman war again. A must read.

John Delezen has given us an amazing book. It is a lyrical journey through events that resonate from his experience in Vietnam. It is the memoir of a young grunt filtered through a scholar's knowledge of Vietnamese language, poetry and history. This is a unique book that is destined to take a place among the very best works about the war in Vietnam.
Each chapter is a separate yet connected story. A separate lesson about young men and war. Don't miss this book.

This book documents the last few chaotic weeks of the US presents in Vietnam. The human story is effectively conveyed by first hand accounts of eyewitnesses from many strata of Vietnam society. The author, an NBC reporter in Saigon, witnessed these events firsthand. His unique perspective and access to the diplomatic corps adds a fascinating credibility to the book. His discussion concerning the actions and statements of Ambassador Graham Martin particularly intrigued me. Did Martin's decisions during that period contribute to the frantic last minute evacuation that left many friendlies stranded? The author makes no judgments. Butler includes transcript of many diplomatic cables to and from Martin and Secretary of State Kissinger and the White House concerning events and plans for evacuation and rescue. Reading these transcripts today still convevs a strong emotional impact for this reader. Interspacing these high level discussions are the stories of a whole society turned upside down while "we" skipped town. The Fall of Saigon is not an easy book to read. We are forced to confront the final conclusion of our failed crusade. Our goal was the minds and the hearts but we ended up fragmented the lives of the people we were suppose to help. When one considers the sacrifices made by both countries in treasure and lives the facts concerning the events of April-May 1975 are hard to digest, even after 30 plus years. No judgments are made here, no accusing fingers are pointed; we must read, and ponder.

Butler was a reporter in Vietnam when the world came crashing down on the South Vietnamese government, the United States that had backed it, and the people who had joined the American cause. This is a searing book, worth any number of lofty Frances FitzGerald tomes. Butler was on the street, in the bars, and driving down the road. What's more important, he loved Vietnam and the Vietnamese. Their tragedy was his tragedy. Go find this book, in a library or a used-book store; it's worth the effort. And if you're a publisher, for God's sake get it reprinted.

I have a whole new respect for the First Cav and admire anybody who served in Vietnam in combat operations with them. Stanton clearly has done his homework. This one goes on my bookshelf as a keeper. I hope his other books are this good.

Stanton, who has been under an increasing cloud of late, is no rookie when it comes to military history in general or the history of the Vietnam War in particular. He begins by laying out his purpose for writing this work in his preface. He makes it clear that this will not be the ordinary divisional history where the author merely discusses every combat action of the division in the Vietnam War. Rather, Stanton intends this book as, ". . . a critical analysis of the mechanism and composition of the airmobile cavalry division." (ix) In order to accomplish his established goals, he devotes 5 chapters of this 12 chapter book to the conceptual and divisional evolution (Chapters 1-2), a study of the divisional structure (Chapter 10), an evaluation of the division's performance in Vietnam (Chapter 11), and the division's restructuring as an armor division in the early 1970s (Chapter 12). Stanton does not neglect to provide an overview of the division's operations, as the middle chapters (Chapters 3-9) are structured as a chronological examination of the division's operations in Vietnam.

Stanton is a solid writer who manages to both hold the reader's attention and make his points clearly and succinctly. 1st Cav in Vietnam is also well illustrated with both photographs (many of which are from the author's own collection) and, perhaps more importantly, maps. In addition, the author includes two useful appendices at the end of the book. The first appendix includes a list of the units which were assigned and attached to the division during its time in Vietnam. The second appendix details the divisional structure during the formation of the division. The author also includes a short bibliography of both the primary and secondary sources (which are of both a published and an unpublished nature) which were used in the writing of the work.

Tom Smith did a fabulous job of showing us the human side of a controversial war. He tells how it was from an insiders point of view and in a very easy to read manner. It is refreshing to see that soldiers, even in times of war, are able to stay in touch with their needs ... are able to laugh a little ... and not be consumed by their surroundings.

I was sucked into this book from the very first chapter...I could tell this wasn't your ordinary "take my side" coverage of the war. No hidden agenda's, just experiences relayed. I loved it!

this was a very interesting book written in an easy reading style. he was not trying to put any pressure to like or dislike the war, he was just telling you how it was for him and his feeling then and now. he seems to be a real patriot and a true american that was trying to do the best job he could do for his men and his country.

As a lay person (i.e. one who has never been in the military or in Vietnam), I found this book very exciting and educational. While those like me will struggle slightly with the military vernacular and acronyms, there is plenty of real life drama to keep you riveted. Kit Lavell does an excellent job in bringing the reader into the backseat of the amazing OV-10 as it flies missions in the Mekong Delta, all the while giving you an extremely detailed chronological account of this attack squadron from its conception to decommission. Anyone interested in war history will love this book, which uncovers an untold chapter of the Vietnam war. The Black Ponies are truly some of the unsung heroes of this controversial war. The testimonies of those who received life-saving support from these men are astounding. You can't help but be amazed by the capabilities of this unusual aircraft and the skilled pilots who "drove" them. As much as I enjoyed this book, I can only imagine that those with a military background and those who served in Vietnam (especially in the Mekong Delta) will appreciate it even more.

This is the story of Navy Light Attack Squadron Four. It began in the very late 60's and was decommissioned in mid 1972. It's mission was close air support and protection of the US and Viet Namese Navy's riverine forces/brown water navy, including the SEALS. It was started with odd looking but agile light aircraft borrowed from the Marines to fill a mission that jet aircraft and helicopters could not. The Navy had eliminated in the mid 60s the only aircraft that had been able to support these forces on the ground.

It provides historical data with foot notes that makes it valuable for students of the era and scholars. It has interspersed personal information and stories - funny and sad - from the author's recollection, interviews with persons involved, copies and originals of official documents, private letters, scripts and casette recordings done at the time by some of the subjects.

Some of the characters- real people- include the brave and the foolish, the disturbed, the failed, the reborn. One commanding officer is as classical a martinet as any in literature or history.

It reads well and the technical and military allusions always are accompanied by a subtle/parallel plain language description which makes it enjoyable for non-military readers.

For craft and reading pleasure it's remininscent of Flight of the Intruder and Hunt for Red October.

I know Alex Lee, as well as "Doc" Norton and Paul "Old Man" Keaveney. A. Lee says this book, in my inscription, is a book about love , the love one man has for another, so he is willing to lay his life down for the other! I heartily suggest you read this book, if you want an honest, frank account of war, as seen through the eyes of the men who fought it! I have worked with these men, and written about them. I think the highest compliment I could get was when Alex Lee said to me, Kevin, we read what you wrote and know what was published. You are "One of My Marines"! As a Young Marine Support Staff person, I have had Paul Keaveney come and speak to our Young Marines. I have had "Doc" Norton Speak at our USMC Birthday Balls. They are fine Americans, and honest, dedicated loyal U. S. Marines.!!!!! Semper FI!!

This is one of the best books on military leadership I have ever read. LtCol Lee's willingness to highlight not only what he and his unit achieved but also what could have done diffently seperates this book from being just another "I was there" book full of sea stories. Excellent read. I encourage any Marine or Army NCO or officer to pick this book up. Lots of lessons learned future generations can read here.

Mahony has done what no one before him was able to do--get a "big publisher" in this case Scribners and Simon & Schuster to publish a Vietnam War Poetry Anthology in both a hardcover and paper edition and make it available to a variety of markets. Except for W.D. Ehrhart who got Avon to print an early anthology in l985--which was promptly "dumped" , no American publisher has touched the subject of Vietnam War poetry. Now we have Mahony's From Both Sides Now with its multi-faceted approach and a pretty sharp intro by its editor. A fine text for classroom use since it affords a view of veterans from both sides, as well as other more well-known poets including Sharon Olds and Philip Levine,etc. The anthology is well-organized, and in some cases especially poignant since it presents poems by poets whose work is not known to the American public. This is an extremely accessible book, rich with the real loss and melancholia of our longest war.

This book was exciting in two ways. One, the poetry was wonderful, combing poets who are quite famous with poets who are published here for the first time. Second, it recreated the Vietnam experience in a way I hadn't experienced in years. I especially enjoyed reading the dozens of poems in this book that were written by young Vietnamese-Amercan and Amerasian poets.

In 1954, two members of the Ecole Francaise d'Extreme Orient published a commendable scholarly work titled: Connaissance du Viet-Nam. Pierre Huard and Maurice Durand meticulously, but not laboriously, capsulized Vietnamese geography, history, education, agriculture, family relations, literature, and music, amid many other topics. Their essential thesis was that this economically impoverished nation has a bountiful cultural heritage.

Almost half a century elapsed before a work of comparable revelation emerged in English. The late and noted lexicographer Nguyen Dinh Hoa's cultural memoir proves the Huard and Durand thesis. The memoir focuses on Vietnamese customs and mores as the author experienced them growing up in Hanoi: Lining up for water at the community well; collection of night soil, a friend's accuracy with the slingshot, sleeping under a mosquito net, introduction to the martial arts at ten, burial of the placenta and umbilical cord, silversmithing techniques, and marketing of the urine of a pre-pubescent boy as a tonic. This personalized approach humanizes and vivifies what otherwise might have been dry text.

Hoa either had total recall or was the most fastidious keeper of a journal since Samuel Pepys. He lists the names and characteristics of his grade school teachers, and describes the menu offered to him on his arrival in New York in 1948. Woe to anyone who met Hoa since Hoa was five years old, and couldn't remember Hoa's name, for he surely would have remembered yours. Particularly for someone who spoke no English until his early twenties, he manifested a remarkable grasp of English idiom and nuance. In all the memoir's two hundred pages, only four slightly infelicitous expressions emerge. None interferes with meaning, and they are all too petty to elaborate on here.

This fabled memoir is an argument for nature over nurture. Hoa came from an illustrious family in which, for several generations, all the males have been named Nguyen Dinh this or that. In fact, in the memoir, the reader sometimes gets lost in the forest of Nguyen Dinh's.

The memoir is wisely non-linear. It does not pass directly from birth through adolescence to maturity, but skips entertainingly back and forth in time. For example, we learn about Mit, Hoa's wife, through her encounter with a stereotypically uncomprehending official of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, long before he tells us of their early betrothal.

Hoa's memoir is a revelation of the richness and humanity of Vietnamese culture, and a a welcome antidote for those whose image of Vietnam is shaped by Oliver Stone and Stanley Kubrick.

As a linguist, and also someone steeped in the history of Vietnam, no doubt Dr. Nguyen Dinh-Hoa has thought deeply about the symbolic significance of "Ha-Noi," named for Vietnam's northern capital. As the cradle of Vietnamese civilization, it literally means "the city inside the Red River," hence the title of the book. The word "Noi" in Vietnamese denotes "inside" and suggests either insulation or introspection. The word "Ha" on the other hand, means "river" and suggests flow, confluence, and change. In fact, Dutch, Portuguese, and British merchants in the 16th century had referred to the bustling city by the Red River as "Ke Cho" or "The Market Place." Thus, in the very title of Dr. Nguyen's work, "From the City inside the Red River," there exists already a tension between tradition and change--the tension that defines the essence of Vietnamese culture.

In his book, Dr. Nguyen covers at length the history and geography of Hanoi, or "The Old Capital" of Vietnam from the 11th century to the 19th century. At the same time, he weaves his personal history into the larger tapestry of his native city. The street where he was born and lived until early adulthood is at once imbued with rich historical context and future portent. It is called to this day "Pho Hang Bac" meaning "Silver Street." The French called this street "Rue des Changeurs" ("Moneychangers' Street.") It is one of the oldest streets in Hanoi and used to serve as the financial center of ancient Vietnam. Like Hanoi, Silver Street embraces both the Old World, and the change brought by commerce with the New World.

In Dr. Nguyen's memoir, historical changes occurred side by side with personal changes. Dr. Nguyen mentioned the Confucian tradition of "rectifying names," i.e., the formal ritual of changing a person's given birth name to mark the karmic change that transforms his or her personal essence. Dr. Nguyen translates this symbolic tradition into a loose American colloquialism, i.e., "how not to call a spade a spade." Dr. Nguyen's first name, Hoa, was given to him by his father, which means "The Peace-Loving One." In 1948, Dr. Nguyen received a scholarship to study at Union College, in Schenectady, New York. He was sponsored by Delta Upsilon Fraternity through a Union College Program called H.E.L.P. (Higher Education for Lasting Peace.) Delta Upsilon brothers immediately rechristened him "Wing-Ding," possibly a phonetic equivalent of his family name, "Nguyen Dinh." Ironically, the word "Wing-Ding" in American slang means an outburst, or a wild and raucous party, a meaning, and name that represents the direct opposite of Hoa, "the peace-loving one." As a fateful name, however, it captures perfectly the dual nature of Dr. Nguyen--an open, adventurous stranger in a strange land. In the dawn of post-war America, his new name "Wing-Ding" conjured up an aura of singsong childishness--perhaps unintended condescension-- if not racism, from his good-intentioned American brothers. But I cannot help but think that the name Wing-Ding was a liberating "rectification" for Dr. Nguyen. It allowed him to immerse into the piquant mores of mid-century America without losing his uniqueness. Wing-Ding thrived on whole milk and Coca-Cola. Wing-Ding played canasta in the afternoon with American housewives. Wing-Ding hitch-hiked across America.

As time went by, Dr. Nguyen "aka" Wing-Ding became a traveller across cultures, whose personal life adhered closely with the progress of his academic work in linguistics. Names of places and people in his life began to acquire double, finely shaded meanings. His first-born daughter is named Patricia My Huong, which means American Rose, and also Beautiful Rose of the Fatherland.

While Dr. Nguyen's cultural memoir represents a celebration of multi-ethnic confluences, at times his memoir highlights certain aspects of Vietnamese culture that are impossible to translate into an American context. Dr. Nguyen recounts his experience teaching English to a group of Vietnamese students in the 1950s, using a textbook containing words such as "tulips," "central heating," and "the tube"--words that imparted no concrete dimension to citizens of a tropical, then largely agrarian Vietnam. Conversely, Dr. Nguyen could not find any English word that captured the eccentric sensuality of certain Vietnamese fruits or dishes, such as mang cau, du du, banh chung, che dau xanh (custard apple, papaya, rice cake, mung bean pudding).

Tropical fruits and flowers as symbols and landscape signifiers exist throughout the book, creating a sense of Proustian nostalgia, a remembrance of things past that exists dominantly in the hearts and minds of overseas Vietnamese. Ultimately, Dr. Nguyen's cultural memoir represents a dual testament to mutability and survival. His memoir celebrates the endurance of the Vietnamese language through foreign domination, war and peace--enduring in its power to subvert the external into the internal, enduring in its ability to synthesize the cacophonous into the melodious whole. Toward the end of his book, Dr. Nguyen succinctly captures the wisdom of Nguyen Trai, a famous fourteenth century poet:

Let your children and grandchildren not worry about the meagerness of your assets, your poems and books as a treasure trove shall last ten generations !

In this book, Dr. McKelvey wrote a detailed and intimate account of the South Vietnamese military officers' fates after the end of the Vietnam War.

The message is troublesome but not surprising: the military personnel were rounded into re-education camps and suffered untold tragedies from humiliation, torture, mental degradation to physical impoverishment within a communist prison system. The majority of the officers were jailed from ten to fifteen years; one officer was detained for a total of 22 years.

While 70,000 former political inmates and their families were allowed to immigrate to the U.S. through the ODP (Orderly Departure Program), many more are still living on the fringes of the Vietnamese communist society. A former major drives a pedicab for a living. In this McKelvey's book, we heard the voices of a doctor, a tailor, a politician, an engineer, a spy, a pilot, and a teacher. They all endured "grueling and unforgiving ordeals that only the strongest would have survived." Family members were ostracized for being related to the political prisoners; their wives suffered uncounted financial, emotional, physical hardships, their children barred from a decent education.

The book is one of the few that deal with the long-term psychological effects of the incarceration on the inmates and the sufferings of their relatives.

The author concludes that: 1) War does not end when peace treaties are signed because the negative rippling effects of war and destruction affect many generations to come. 2) The U.S. should be very careful about intervening militarily in any part of the World. 3) The U.S., if it does go to war, cannot simply abandon friends and allies to the mercies of common enemies.

I am a student from Vietnam and now studying in the U.S. I chanced to read this book in our university library. Thanks the AUTHOR for an insightful book.

In fact, my family background was 'clean' in the eyes of our government because my parents were not involved in any military service for the former government. But I have friends whose family situations were exactly the same as those portrayed in the book. I must say those are incredible human sufferings, and not only for one generation. I am glad some of those stories are now heard, perhaps a bit late but still, better than never.

Here's a life-time lesson for me (and perhaps some others): no matter how and what communists tell you, don't hastily believe them. Just look at what and how they do, and you'll see it for yourself. For many of them, human dignity and lives are trivial and cheap.

This is real history! The 1st Squadron 9th cavalry is the most decorated unit that served in the Vietnam war They were the only "true" cavalry unit. They served as a model for other "recon" units of the war, there tactics are used by all the Rangers, Special Forces, Seals, Etc. today. They all deserve the Congressional Medal of Honor!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When you read this book, you will see and feel what a portion of the men of the 1/9th Air Cavalry experienced while serving in Vietnam. No one can fully understand what a person experiences in war if they've not been there, but this book gives you an insight into what each man experienced and how it has affected them afterwards. Anyone that has ever wondered what a Recon unit goes through in war, this would be the book for them. This would make a great addition to a military book collection.