Book Review: Wiest, Andrew—The Boys of '67

I’ve encountered a couple of broad overviews of the Vietnam war before. I picked this book up at the library because I was interested in the day to day experiences of a US soldier fighting in Vietnam.  This book is about “Charlie Company” drafted right at the beginning of the Vietnam war. It goes through their experiences in basic training, the year or so they spent in Vietnam, and  a quick overview of a few of the men’s family they left behind and their experiences after getting home from the war.

When you read about most wars they seem to have some sort of geographical goal. The strategists running things are trying to move the front forward with a final aim of conquering a something. In Vietnam soldiers were sent out to patrol specific areas, kill as many Viet Cong as possible and then come back to camp for a little R&R before going out again. Sometimes they would patrol the exact same area where that they had previously fought a bloody battle only a few months prior.

This aimlessness combined with the normal rigors of war seems to have horrible effects on morale. What is the point to fight and die in order to kill random people in a foreign country that doesn’t really want you there to begin with? Imagine if our police force was tasked, not with sustaining law and order, but with prowling around various neighborhoods and killing as many perceived criminals as possible. The emotional effect on both the police and the people being policed would be enormously traumatic.

The soldiers in Vietnam consequently spent lots of their free time drinking, doing drugs and availing themselves of prostitutes.

On the other hand there seems to be this emotional rush that comes with fighting for your life, and an intense sense of brotherhood for those with whom you fight that can’t be replicated anywhere else and that is extremely compelling. So much so that some men re-enlist because they can’t experience it anywhere else.

The book also describes the bouts with PTSD the soldiers experienced after coming home from the war. One man, once he was diagnosed with PTSD, was kicked out of the army. When he showed up at the VA for PTSD treatment, that same army told him that PTSD was not a recognized condition and therefore they couldn’t help him.

The quality of writing is merely sufficient, and it has a tendency toward being overly sentimental. Nevertheless, it’s a fascinating bit of history from the soldier's point of view.