Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered From All Sides
by Christian G. Appy
c. 2003
If you only read one book on the Vietnam War in your entire life, this should be the one you read.
Christian Appy literally interviewed people from every side of the war in the writing of this book and then printed many of those interviews exactly as the interviewed told him their story. He interviewed soldiers from the U.S. and from Vietnam. He interviewed protesters, generals, recruits, villagers, children, and draftees. He interviewed those held in prison camps and parents who have never recovered their sons.
This work is powerful and gives a new light to a bad time in two countries. It’s extremely hard to read–especially for someone who was raised that the U.S. cause was just. The problem is, in reality, it wasn’t the U.S. that had a cause. The cause was for France, a country that was primarily non-existent on the ground. The cause was for the people of Vietnam but very few of them, on either side, had any say at all.
This starts before the war and continues after the war ended. It’s long and can be very disturbing. Language and violence of all kids abounds–after all, this is about a war. It will challenge everything you ever heard about the Vietnam War–unless, of course, you were there.
