They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace Vietnam and America, October 1967

This book is a must read for anyone who has an interest in Viet Nam and the turmoil and rending of our society that the war created. The story of the men from the 2/28 of the Big Red One, and battle that took place on October 17, 1967, is incredibly well researched and told. The book is worth reading for that alone. But the book also gives the reader a fascinating look at the dynamics of the campus protest at the the University of Wisconsin, and the students that became part of, or were what came to be called the counter culture.In October of 1967 I was just getting out of the Army after being drafted and spending a year in Viet Nam. I was in the 1st Battlion 18th Infrantry of the First Infranty Divison, which was a sister battlion of the 2/28. After getting out of the Army I enrolled at Kent State, so I experienced both sides of the battles in Viet Nam and the battles that were starting to take place on college campuses around America. From that perspective I highly recommend this book to everyone of my generation and also to our children's generation.

On Sunday, November 2, I met David Maraniss at the Vietnam Wall in Washington. Members of the West Point class of 1956 were there to honor our classmate Don Holleder. We gave Maraniss a round of applause for capturing so well the battle where Holleder was killed and the life that Holleder lived as a great athlete, leader and friend. This book is a fair-minded treatment of a terrible and tragic event in US military history. But the book also captures with great skill other important events in the month of October, 1967.

"They Marched into Sunlight" is without doubt the best book I've read this year, and should be a top contender for the '03 Pulitzer in History. Maraniss is an exceptionally skilled storyteller, a talent he displayed in abundance in his excellent Vince Lombardi biography, "When Pride Still Mattered." In "Sunlight," he chronicles two events that occurred half a world apart on October 17, 1967: the ambush of two under-manned companies of the U.S. First Infantry Division ("Big Red One") in Vietnam, and the violent clash between police and student demonstrators who were attempting to block Dow Chemical Co. (the maker of naplam) from recruiting on the Univ of Wisconsin campus. Maraniss adroitly weaves a coherent, engaging narrative from these disparate events (no easy task), producing a thoroughly entrancing work. There are many heart-rending stories depicted --- for example, Col. Terry Allen, son of the legendary Big Red One general in WWII, and Major David Holleder, a former West Point All-American, both of whom are slain in the battle. The painful dissolution of his marriage -- and the selfish perfidy and betrayal by his wife -- add special poignance to Allen's story. We also learn of ironic coincidences ("connections," Maraniss calls them). For example, the improbable marriage between the son of an anti-Dow protestor and the daughter of a Vietnam ambush survivor. Or the significance of "knocks on wood." On the one hand, the popular Eddie Floyd song, hummed continually for good luck by a sergeant; on the other, the secret signal employed by the VC to trigger the deadly ambush.Particularly with the Wisconsin story, Maraniss presents a multitude of voices and perspectives -- administrators, law enforcement officials, protest organizers (including the self-proclaimed "resident demagouge"), bystanders and apolitical students who became radicalized by horror they witness. However, in a very large cast of characters -- I found myself continually consulting the alphabetical listing at the front of the book to keep everyone straight: "Okay, that's the girl from New Jersey, who missed her French exam . . ." -- the one voice we don't hear is students' who were denied the opportunity to interview with Dow. What did they think of the takeover of the Commerce Building? Or the decision to deploy the police to clear it? What about the trammeling of THEIR rights? What happened to them later? What careers did they pursue? The viewpoint of one or two of these students would have added to the narrative.Even in spite of that one shortcoming, "Sunlight" is a easily a five-star work, a compelling story -- actually two stories -- superbly told in the hands of Maraniss.In closing, I want to observe that it is amazing how many people with cameo roles in the Wisconsin story would go on to greater noteriety -- Melvin Laird, Lynn and Dick Cheney, Tommy Thompson, David Keene, James Sensenbrenner, to name just a few.

After reading Maraniss' biographies of Bill Clinton and Vince Lombardi, I expected this book to be great, and I was not disappointed. Weaving two narratives together - one dealing with the ambush of American troops in Vietnam, the other one of the first anti-war protests at the University of Wisconsin - Maraniss almost literally puts the reader right in the middle of the action in tumultuous 1967. Each story is riveting, and I was most fascinated by the fact that I was able to identify with nearly everyone in the book, whether they were a freshman protester at the University of Wisconsin or a 20-year old kid fighting in Vietnam. Maraniss' ability to convey each person's motivations and thoughts is the key to this being such a compelling book. While it will certainly be of interest to history buffs, war buffs, ex-hippies and ex-soldiers, this book really is as much about human nature and what motivates us as much as anything else. I wasn't yet born when the action in this book took place, and it was interesting for me to see what America was like 36 years ago. There are certainly many parallels to what is happening in Iraq, the decisions everyday people and people in high places are making ... The epilogue is beautiful, and gets to a central point of the book: as much as the war in Vietnam divided the country, that shared experience can serve as a bridge to bring people together, people who "fought" for America in very different ways ...