My Detachment: A Memoir

The tone of Tracy Kidder's excellent memoir from his tour of duty in Vietnam in 1968 and 1968 is dour, full of resentment and disbelief in the value of war, and one of the stronger pacifist statements in book form. Rather than re-living the horrors of the Vietnam War and struggling to stay alive in a combat zone not marked by peripheries but rather by indistinct underground burrows where the ubiquitous 'enemy' remained hidden and disguised, Kidder's 'Detachment' was an Intelligence unit, for the most part safe from assault attack, but a unit that suffered the psychological destruction that accompanies an isolated band of men living in filthy conditions and always under the threat of 'inspection' by commanding officers seemingly more concerned with polished boots than by healthy mental states. Kidder, who never believed in the concept of the war in Vietnam, was a Lieutenant in charge of a small band of enlisted men whose job was to gather Intelligence to pass on to the war planners. His memoir unveils his own need to transmit to his family and girlfriend back home a sense of constant danger and participation in killing, and it is this disparity between his own convictions and the 'image' he felt necessary to send home that makes his memoir so frighteningly memorable. He shares his relationship to the men under his command, the multiple problems he confronted with personality types and aberrant situations, and the manner in which he grew as a man during his prolonged exposure to the underbelly of the commanding officers of the war. 'But to represent something is to command power over it. Maps are the tools of many ambitious people, of policy makers, commanders of armies, and youths who like to play at being one of those. And the problem is that the maps are easily confused with the world'. Where Kidder succeeds in his memoir about his war experience is in his brutal honesty, his fearless approach to report the reality of a war everyone is electing to forget, and the impact that Vietnam had on the mentality of the world and especially now with the youths who face another very similar war. His pacifism may annoy some readers, but his intelligence as a reporter and a writer cannot by ignored. As Kidder completed his tour, he observed a lifer, Major Great, on his way to back into Vietnam and ultimately society: 'I tried to imagine the life in front of him. Paperwork and acronyms and young men who wouldn't get dressed right. Too bad he wasn't a more prepossessing villain. But what a horrible life. Incomprehensible, really. And, of course, he probably walked off still shaking his head, thinking much the same about me.' Kidder has written a gripping book, one that would serve us all well to read - a different view of the long-term effect of Vietnam, and war in general. Grady Harp, March 08

Having read "House", I knew that I liked Kidder's writing style and was curious about this book because of my own experiences. Much like Kidder, I was attending graduate school in Boston when I was drafted into the Army and ended up doing a tour of duty in Viet Nam. Also like Kidder, I was somewhat ambivalent about serving in the Army as I did not support the war and did not believe the U S should be in Viet Nam. So we both were sent off to do something that didn't need to be done for people who didn't want it done for them. Kidder does an excellent job of describing the almost fog-like state of mind that someone in their 20s adopts while in the military in order to get through the entire process, from basic training to final discharge. Kidder discusses how the day you arrived in-country, you started counting off the days until you could leave. It was rare to find anyone who couldn't tell you the number of days until they could DEROS (date of estimated return from overseas) or ETS (estimate termination from service). I will never forget drunken soldiers at NCO clubs, who had been in country all of three days, singing the "Short Song" - the Animals' version of "We Gotta Get Out of this Place." Kidder does a marvelous job of sharing the sense of tedium you experienced as well as the sense that you were completely and totally wasting your time. For most of us, your only goal and objective in serving in Viet Nam was not to be killed and Kidder helps the reader understand how one would adopt this philosophy. It was clear that we were not out saving America for democracy. Kidder also brings parts of his failed novel on Viet Nam into this book in helping describe the fantasies of those who were serving in the rear echelons. Kidder does a good job of explaining that many of the people who were sent to Viet Nam were not humping through the boonies but instead were placed in mindless jobs in the rear echelon. There they had to take orders from officers and senior NCOs who were putting in their required time in a war zone because it was a box that needed to be checked off so they could get their next promotion. The constant rotation of new officers on a one year tour meant that for at least the first six months, an officer was learning his job before he became any where close to being proficient. It was almost constant OJT. This book resonated with me in terms of reminding me of having many of the same experiences and feelings as Kidder described in his book: misadventures on R & R (I was in Bangkok and Kidder was in Singapore but the experience was quite similar); dislike and disdain for "lifers": a sense of how unfair life could be if you received a "dear John" letter from your fiancee; frustration over the fact that most of one's college friends had been clever enough to avoid being drafted and sent to Viet Nam; the fact that your peers viewed you as a "baby killer" instead of a patriot. If you served in Viet Nam, particularly as a REMF, you will

For those who have responded based on their experiences in Vietnam: This book is a record of Mr. Kidder's experience. What you saw and felt and participated in during your tour of duty is irrelevant. And now, I want to say, as a Vietnam war protestor, I enjoyed his book for its diffident tone, seeming honesty, good writing, well-discribed characters, atmosphere of absurdity and aura of regret: for youth, for the foolish ideas of youth, for loss of innocence.

This excellent author, who has deservedly won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, has nothing to prove. He is a writer's writer and this book reads like it is from the heart. He deconstructs his unpublished novel, written after his return from Viet Nam, as he desconstructs his life during that time. It is a tale, a tale of a tale, and a warning that all war books exist in a shaky reality. It is not a heroic tale, except that the author's intelligence and honesty is heroic in the face of temptations to make all military service heroic. I doubt that it will be among the author's most popular books, but it will probably remain my favorite. It is not overtly pro-war nor anti-war, but strives toward a realism (which never ceases to shake) and a dark sense of humor, pointing out that the domino theory was a stupid concept to die for, and that the war was fought stupidly by a self-serving bureaucracy, by men who were simply men following the logic of their time. Kidder puts some of the literary personalities he knew at the time in here, Robert Fitzgerald (who translated THE ODYSSEY) and Sam Toperoff (whose own memoirs are also little known gems). In Viet Nam, Kidder was reading Joseph Conrad's HEART OF DARKNESS and LORD JIM, and other books he quotes from or at least mentions include THE GREAT GATSBY and A FAREWELL TO ARMS. It is understated, but you can tell that he admired Hemingway in the typical macho way back then, but when he looks back at himself now, he sees how foolish he was. Kidder may have written this as a kind of catharsis. It is honest and wise, and we need all the honesty and wisdom we can get.

As someone who served as a U.S. Army lieutenant in Vietnam (June 1968-June 1969), I am an eager buyer of any book about similar experiences, especially those by writers as good as Tracy Kidder. This book is interesting, well-written, and psychologically and historically accurate in most ways. You will enjoy it even if you have no direct experience of Vietnam or the war America fought there and don't know a REMF from a grunt wearing a CIB (all terms explained in the book). The author does not spare himself (giving us chunks of his wince-making adolescent novel written immediately after his return) and can be searingly honest about some of his experiences, such as those with the prostitutes in Singapore on his R & R and his description of the NVA's dominance of the war and its Cambodian sanctuaries, which are likely to get him tarred and feathered in the circles in which he hangs out in Northampton and Cambridge. There is a particularly interesting interplay between his Harvard (1963-67) and Army (1967-69) experiences which can be summarized as the Army seen through the lens of his Harvard education and acculturation. (I had the opposite perspective, doing the Army first and then Harvard Law School -- which is quite different from the Adams House/final club Harvard undergrad -- in 1969-72, and the contrast was very instructive). The only hesitation I have about this book is that there is a little bit too much navel-gazing and teasing of the reader (starting with the deliberately ambiguous title) which comes across as over-cleverness at times. Kidder also drops all these references to The Great Gatsby throughout the text, one of the first American novels to employ the device of the less than fully honest narrator, which after a while raises the reader's suspicion level and detracts from the book, as after a while it occasionally feels like a hall of mirrors. Still, it was an enjoyable read and beautifully well-written like all Kidder's books, and I found nothing in it that was dishonest and much that was honest and brought back memories of my own service, some painful and some which make you laugh out loud (yes, there is laughter in war zones -- lots of it, to relieve the tension). The only better book I know in this genre is In Pharoah's Army by Tobias Wolff, which has a more straightforward and serious tone than this excellent book. Highest possible recommendation.