A Bright Shining Lie

This is about John Paul Vann who became an adviser to the Saigon regime in the early 1960s. He was an ardent critic of how the war was fought, both on the part of the Saigon regime, which he viewed as corrupt and incompetent, and, as time went by, increasingly, on the part of the U.S. military. In particular, he was critical of the U.S. military command, especially under William Westmoreland, and their inability to adapt to the fact that they were facing a popular guerrilla movement while backing a corrupt regime.

Comments by John...
"The problem that I had, and I’m sure many other readers had, was that Sheehan had a perfect foil in the death of JP Vann, who could not argue with the author’s use of him as a metaphor for the lie that was the Vietnam War. That Vann thought we were winning the war at the time of his death was dismissed by Sheehan with an “I told you so”, pointing to Vann’s death as unfortunately substantiating the author’s thesis. But still, I cannot dismiss this very flawed yet compelling and thorough book. If not the very best book about the US role in the Vietnam conflict, it is certainly in the top tier."

Comments by John...
"If you search for “Vietnam Artillery” on Amazon a number of interesting titles pop up including this one. A review implied this book would be appreciated by serious Vietnam geeks."

More Bang for No Bucks

Paul Betit Novels

The Man in The Canal, the long-awaited sequel to Phu Bai and Kagnew Station, are now available. Paul Betit’s new mystery-suspense novel describing the adventures of U.S. Army CID investigator John Murphy is set in Sweden during the summer of 1971.

For more information about Betit’s books and his public appearances, please visit http://www.paulbetit.com/

We Were Soldiers Once, And Young

Comments by Otto...
"The introduction speaks volumes about the feelings many of us have regarding the war and our place in society."

What Have They Done to the Rain?