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Friendly Fire
Chronicles the 1970 Vietnam death of Michael Mullen, his Iowan parents' outspoken opposition to the war and efforts to uncover the true circumstances of Michael's death, and the resulting governmental hostility and FBI surveillance
448 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
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110 people want to read
About the author
C.D.B. Bryan
24 books7 followersCourtlandt Dixon Barnes Bryan, better known as C. D. B. Bryan, was an American author and journalist.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
May 15, 2016
Bryan was a journalist and author during the mid-twentieth century, and Friendly Fire, which originally began as a story for the New Yorker and grew into something more, tells the story of the Mullen family and their response to the death of Michael, a clean-cut young man that answered his draft notice, dutifully served and was killed by friendly fire not long after he was sent to Vietnam. Thank s goes to Open Road Integrated Media and to Net Galley for the invitation to read and review. This is right up my alley and I found it compelling. It was published digitally May 10, 2016 and is now available for purchase.
Michael Mullen was the favorite son of Iowan farmers Gene and Peg Mullen, working farmers steeped in traditional values and respect for authority, who had never questioned the US involvement in Vietnam. If the government said that US forces were fighting there to contain the spread of communism and keep Americans safe, then it must be so. Michael was the kind of young man that called people “ma’am” and “sir”. When his effects were delivered to his family following his death, there were no fewer than three rosaries he’d carried on his person. He had expected to return from service, as his father had done from an earlier war, and inherit the family farm. His family was part of the Silent Majority to which governmental authorities referred when defending the role of the USA in Indochina.
In short, they were the last people anyone would have expected to see become anti-war activists.
Michael’s death rocked parents Peg and Gene, and their grief eventually alienated them from the three children left to them. The part of their story that galvanized me was in reading their intelligent, sharp responses during the initial period following their bereavement. For many of us facing the loss of any loved one—and the death of a child is the worst loss of all—ferreting out information about that person’s days, weeks, even months is our last link to them. But Peg and Gene took it to another level when they realized that some of the information they had received was untrue. Peg became an organizational whirlwind, searching for the names and stories of other Iowa boys that had died in that conflict and she realized that the casualties that were being reported to and in the media were incorrect. The responses she received from everyone from US officials to the parish priest were so insensitive, so baldly insulting that she and husband Gene made the war and those near their son when he died into an immense research project, reaching out to newspapers and television news widely. This reviewer grew up during this period and when I read that Peg was on the phone with national newscaster Chet Huntley’s secretary in New York, my jaw dropped! In this era before satellites gave us phones in our pockets and information available at the touch of a keyboard, they typed letters, made long-distance phone calls, and in time even traveled to Washington D.C. in order to know how and why their son had been killed and who was to blame.
The fifth star here is denied because the beginning of the story, which goes into overmuch detail about the family’s genealogical beginnings and its long history in Iowa soil, is deadly dull. When the book was first published, the video game had not yet been invented and readers had longer attention spans. Today if a book does not hook a reader from the start, chances are excellent it will be immediately and forever abandoned. Although the point that the Mullen farm had stood for five generations is surely relevant to the story, the author drags this portion of the story out sufficiently to glaze even the eyes of this history teacher, and together with an awkward introduction that appears to substitute for a bibliography or endnotes, a lot of readers won’t get to the interesting part, and that’s a crying shame.
Ultimately the Mullens’ cause alienated them from their community, probably because they were so free in dispensing blame to everyone that drew breath. Everyone that had not actively opposed the war was called out at some point. The heat of their rage and grief lacked focus. In many ways they undid a lot of the good they had done by cursing old friends and neighbors simply because they had never done anything about the war.
The story will interest those that research conspiracies. The Mullens believed more deception was in play than actually was, yet when a person knows he has been lied to about one thing, it is the intelligent thing to do to wonder how much more one was told is also untrue. And so as they relentlessly sought to find one particular officer that might be to blame for the friendly fire that killed their son, I wanted to bang my head on the wall, because it was so much more than that; the conspiracy, we know now, was seated in the Oval Office, jotting more names, possibly their own, onto his enemies’ list. Targeting this soldier or that minor officer was just wrong-headed, but when people are hurt, they lash out, and the Mullens did so exponentially.
The end of the book deals with the author’s own motivation in following the Mullens and their search for the truth so diligently; nevertheless, it seemed strange to find a host of author photos at the end of the book rather than of the Mullen family.
Had the editing of this digital edition been given to me along with permission to do anything I wished, I would have tightened up the beginning, put the author’s notes at the end of the book rather than the start, and deleted the photo section entirely.
Nevertheless, those with an interest in the struggle to end the US war in Vietnam will find this story well worth reading, and to them I recommend this memoir.
Michael Mullen was the favorite son of Iowan farmers Gene and Peg Mullen, working farmers steeped in traditional values and respect for authority, who had never questioned the US involvement in Vietnam. If the government said that US forces were fighting there to contain the spread of communism and keep Americans safe, then it must be so. Michael was the kind of young man that called people “ma’am” and “sir”. When his effects were delivered to his family following his death, there were no fewer than three rosaries he’d carried on his person. He had expected to return from service, as his father had done from an earlier war, and inherit the family farm. His family was part of the Silent Majority to which governmental authorities referred when defending the role of the USA in Indochina.
In short, they were the last people anyone would have expected to see become anti-war activists.
Michael’s death rocked parents Peg and Gene, and their grief eventually alienated them from the three children left to them. The part of their story that galvanized me was in reading their intelligent, sharp responses during the initial period following their bereavement. For many of us facing the loss of any loved one—and the death of a child is the worst loss of all—ferreting out information about that person’s days, weeks, even months is our last link to them. But Peg and Gene took it to another level when they realized that some of the information they had received was untrue. Peg became an organizational whirlwind, searching for the names and stories of other Iowa boys that had died in that conflict and she realized that the casualties that were being reported to and in the media were incorrect. The responses she received from everyone from US officials to the parish priest were so insensitive, so baldly insulting that she and husband Gene made the war and those near their son when he died into an immense research project, reaching out to newspapers and television news widely. This reviewer grew up during this period and when I read that Peg was on the phone with national newscaster Chet Huntley’s secretary in New York, my jaw dropped! In this era before satellites gave us phones in our pockets and information available at the touch of a keyboard, they typed letters, made long-distance phone calls, and in time even traveled to Washington D.C. in order to know how and why their son had been killed and who was to blame.
The fifth star here is denied because the beginning of the story, which goes into overmuch detail about the family’s genealogical beginnings and its long history in Iowa soil, is deadly dull. When the book was first published, the video game had not yet been invented and readers had longer attention spans. Today if a book does not hook a reader from the start, chances are excellent it will be immediately and forever abandoned. Although the point that the Mullen farm had stood for five generations is surely relevant to the story, the author drags this portion of the story out sufficiently to glaze even the eyes of this history teacher, and together with an awkward introduction that appears to substitute for a bibliography or endnotes, a lot of readers won’t get to the interesting part, and that’s a crying shame.
Ultimately the Mullens’ cause alienated them from their community, probably because they were so free in dispensing blame to everyone that drew breath. Everyone that had not actively opposed the war was called out at some point. The heat of their rage and grief lacked focus. In many ways they undid a lot of the good they had done by cursing old friends and neighbors simply because they had never done anything about the war.
The story will interest those that research conspiracies. The Mullens believed more deception was in play than actually was, yet when a person knows he has been lied to about one thing, it is the intelligent thing to do to wonder how much more one was told is also untrue. And so as they relentlessly sought to find one particular officer that might be to blame for the friendly fire that killed their son, I wanted to bang my head on the wall, because it was so much more than that; the conspiracy, we know now, was seated in the Oval Office, jotting more names, possibly their own, onto his enemies’ list. Targeting this soldier or that minor officer was just wrong-headed, but when people are hurt, they lash out, and the Mullens did so exponentially.
The end of the book deals with the author’s own motivation in following the Mullens and their search for the truth so diligently; nevertheless, it seemed strange to find a host of author photos at the end of the book rather than of the Mullen family.
Had the editing of this digital edition been given to me along with permission to do anything I wished, I would have tightened up the beginning, put the author’s notes at the end of the book rather than the start, and deleted the photo section entirely.
Nevertheless, those with an interest in the struggle to end the US war in Vietnam will find this story well worth reading, and to them I recommend this memoir.
Read
June 14, 2016Friendly Fire; C.B.D. Bryan: Open Road Integrated Media
C. S. Lewis in one of his books opines that evil is not done in the sordid dens of iniquity so prominent in the writings of Dickens but rather it is conceived and ordered in clean, carpeted, warm and well-lighted offices. He adds that his symbol for Hell is something like a bureaucracy. I wonder what Lewis would have said about Hell after reading Friendly Fire.
The Mullen family certainly found the government bureaucracy a rather hellish place when they tried to find out how their son died in Vietnam. What they eventually found, what was not readily forthcoming, was their son had died due to a misfired mortar from American artillery. The Mullens spent the years after the death of their son, Michael, on a mission to find out what happened and to protest the War in Vietnam. (They used Michael’s death benefit to buy an ad protesting the war.)
The story told by the author is well researched and presented in a readable way. It is, in my opinion, written from a position of detachment. The author does not take a side in the debate over the war itself. He certainly must have experienced frustration about the obfuscation of the bureaucrats but he also took the Mullens to task for false information that fueled their anger.
Mr. Bryan was given time to interview those who were in country at the time of Michael’s death, including Norman Schwarzkopf, then a Lt. Colonel. He interviewed those who were with Michael when he died and he reconstructs as accurately as possible the last night of Michael Mullen.
Reading this book took me back to those years. I was in Washington D.C. during the early years of the war. I was quite familiar with the protests including the in“ hog”auration of President Nixon. I was also able to hear Senator Mark Hatfield give his views on the war. However, like most young people at that time, I had friends and classmates in Vietnam. For me the soldiers were not agents of the military industrial complex, they were people with names and faces.
I appreciated the sensitivity of the author in presenting this story of real people, those who left and those who waited.
I received an electronic copy of this book from Netgalley.com with the sole understanding that I would read it and write a review.
C. S. Lewis in one of his books opines that evil is not done in the sordid dens of iniquity so prominent in the writings of Dickens but rather it is conceived and ordered in clean, carpeted, warm and well-lighted offices. He adds that his symbol for Hell is something like a bureaucracy. I wonder what Lewis would have said about Hell after reading Friendly Fire.
The Mullen family certainly found the government bureaucracy a rather hellish place when they tried to find out how their son died in Vietnam. What they eventually found, what was not readily forthcoming, was their son had died due to a misfired mortar from American artillery. The Mullens spent the years after the death of their son, Michael, on a mission to find out what happened and to protest the War in Vietnam. (They used Michael’s death benefit to buy an ad protesting the war.)
The story told by the author is well researched and presented in a readable way. It is, in my opinion, written from a position of detachment. The author does not take a side in the debate over the war itself. He certainly must have experienced frustration about the obfuscation of the bureaucrats but he also took the Mullens to task for false information that fueled their anger.
Mr. Bryan was given time to interview those who were in country at the time of Michael’s death, including Norman Schwarzkopf, then a Lt. Colonel. He interviewed those who were with Michael when he died and he reconstructs as accurately as possible the last night of Michael Mullen.
Reading this book took me back to those years. I was in Washington D.C. during the early years of the war. I was quite familiar with the protests including the in“ hog”auration of President Nixon. I was also able to hear Senator Mark Hatfield give his views on the war. However, like most young people at that time, I had friends and classmates in Vietnam. For me the soldiers were not agents of the military industrial complex, they were people with names and faces.
I appreciated the sensitivity of the author in presenting this story of real people, those who left and those who waited.
I received an electronic copy of this book from Netgalley.com with the sole understanding that I would read it and write a review.
November 5, 2008
Interesting story of a mother looking for her son who died in Vietnam. Peg Mullen was looking for reasons why sher son was kiled in Nam.
Great story of a woman who attacks the Government in D.C.an s she actually survives and tell others of her loss.
Great story of a woman who attacks the Government in D.C.an s she actually survives and tell others of her loss.
May 30, 2016
This is a compelling book about the horrors of war. It is sobering to know that it is a true story.
I received an electronic advance review copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received an electronic advance review copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
November 3, 2014
True story from the Vietnam era. Peg Mullen documents her struggle to find the truth of her son's death; and the government's reluctance to admit the truth. This book will stay with you.
October 8, 2020
Friendly Fire by C.D.B. Bryan is not your typical Vietnam War book. Bryan, a graduate of Yale and (unhappy) veteran of the Korean War, developed this book from a series of articles written for The New Yorker. Friendly Fire centers around the friendly fire death Michael Mullen and his parents', Pat and Gene, investigation of the event.
This is mostly written as narrative fiction with very few notes. Bryan admits that he was trying to present the story rather than the method of research. Michael Mullen died in Vietnam from artillery shrapnel from an American gun firing routine Defensive Targeting (DT) on February 17, 1970. There is immediate sympathy for the parents as they wade through and fight for information. Suspicion cast on the army with a wide range of clerical errors and the arduous task of fighting a bureaucracy. To help build a case for the parents, their family history in Iowa is traced back and the reader is taken into the family -- normal small town America. The reader feels the frustrations as they battle the army for answers. Pat, especially, becomes an outspoken peace activist. The reader continues with little choice but to wholeheartedly support the Mullens.
About half way through the book the reader will pick up on things. Michael's final paycheck given to the family is short because he took advance leave before going to Vietnam and the army deducted that from the check. Pat is outraged and blames the army for not allowing him to live long enough to pay it back with time in service. She writes the president and representatives, often. The FBI is following her and tapping her phone. She blames Michael's battalion commander, LTC Norman Schwarzkopf, for killing her son and covering it up. Schwarzkopf was sacrificing troops to advance his career. I was just over halfway through the book when Pat started losing credibility with me. Not in her opposition to the war, but in her bitterness and looking to find a conspiracy and someone to blame. During a Pentagon visit, she becomes angry at a woman who compiles the casualty lists as if, somehow, the woman is actually creating the casualties.
The Mullen's met with Schwarzkopf while he was in Walter Reed hospital recovering from surgery on his back. When Pat Mullens contacts Schwarzkopf, he said he would like to talk to her about that night. He agrees to meet and continues to invite Pat to talk whom seems more content to argue about meeting than actually meeting. Schwarzkopf is very open and the Mullens are very hostile. Bryan enters the book and plays mediator for the continuation. Bryan spends time with the Mullens and interviews Schwarzkopf. He searches for survivors from the night Michael was killed. This was a monumental task at the time. There were 1.3 million on active duty in the army in 1970 and no computerized recordkeeping. If someone left the army there was no Facebook or Google search to help track them down.
Bryan uses all the information available from eye-witnesses and records and recreates the night of the accident in the final chapter. The result will surprise some and not surprise too many veterans. The death of a son was a catalyst in what became a movement in the 1970s -- anti-war and a loss of faith in elected officials, from the president on down. As much as this book is about the death of Michael Mullens; it is also about a change in the nation and the loss of hope and the American dream. Not your average Vietnam story.
This is mostly written as narrative fiction with very few notes. Bryan admits that he was trying to present the story rather than the method of research. Michael Mullen died in Vietnam from artillery shrapnel from an American gun firing routine Defensive Targeting (DT) on February 17, 1970. There is immediate sympathy for the parents as they wade through and fight for information. Suspicion cast on the army with a wide range of clerical errors and the arduous task of fighting a bureaucracy. To help build a case for the parents, their family history in Iowa is traced back and the reader is taken into the family -- normal small town America. The reader feels the frustrations as they battle the army for answers. Pat, especially, becomes an outspoken peace activist. The reader continues with little choice but to wholeheartedly support the Mullens.
About half way through the book the reader will pick up on things. Michael's final paycheck given to the family is short because he took advance leave before going to Vietnam and the army deducted that from the check. Pat is outraged and blames the army for not allowing him to live long enough to pay it back with time in service. She writes the president and representatives, often. The FBI is following her and tapping her phone. She blames Michael's battalion commander, LTC Norman Schwarzkopf, for killing her son and covering it up. Schwarzkopf was sacrificing troops to advance his career. I was just over halfway through the book when Pat started losing credibility with me. Not in her opposition to the war, but in her bitterness and looking to find a conspiracy and someone to blame. During a Pentagon visit, she becomes angry at a woman who compiles the casualty lists as if, somehow, the woman is actually creating the casualties.
The Mullen's met with Schwarzkopf while he was in Walter Reed hospital recovering from surgery on his back. When Pat Mullens contacts Schwarzkopf, he said he would like to talk to her about that night. He agrees to meet and continues to invite Pat to talk whom seems more content to argue about meeting than actually meeting. Schwarzkopf is very open and the Mullens are very hostile. Bryan enters the book and plays mediator for the continuation. Bryan spends time with the Mullens and interviews Schwarzkopf. He searches for survivors from the night Michael was killed. This was a monumental task at the time. There were 1.3 million on active duty in the army in 1970 and no computerized recordkeeping. If someone left the army there was no Facebook or Google search to help track them down.
Bryan uses all the information available from eye-witnesses and records and recreates the night of the accident in the final chapter. The result will surprise some and not surprise too many veterans. The death of a son was a catalyst in what became a movement in the 1970s -- anti-war and a loss of faith in elected officials, from the president on down. As much as this book is about the death of Michael Mullens; it is also about a change in the nation and the loss of hope and the American dream. Not your average Vietnam story.
March 17, 2021
There are five stages of grief after a devastating death. I believe the Mullens got locked into the anger stage and couldn't make it past that. I am not criticizing that because no one knows what their reaction would be to such news. In fact their persistence opened up the truth about Michael's death and even changed a few military policies.
This war traumatized me as it did for millions of people. I was a young teen when we lost my best friend's brother to this war. I worked at Look Magazine a few years later during summer school breaks and saw the horrifying pictures of the injured.
I won't talk politics here but there were many wrongs done to our servicemen; those who went willingly and those who didn't. God bless them all.
This war traumatized me as it did for millions of people. I was a young teen when we lost my best friend's brother to this war. I worked at Look Magazine a few years later during summer school breaks and saw the horrifying pictures of the injured.
I won't talk politics here but there were many wrongs done to our servicemen; those who went willingly and those who didn't. God bless them all.
October 9, 2017
Author spends first 5% of the book on the history of the family. It could have been done in three paragraphs. The next half is spent on how the unfortunate family of death from "friendly fire" evolves in the anti-war movement, repeating the theme and subject that has nothing to do with the mystery of how the son died. The latter part of the book, about 30% deals with how the son died. I usually finish my books, hoping to find a "gem". Many of the events are repeated and repeated. The main character has sympathy despite her obnoxious behavior. Not much found here. In short, this book is not as advertised.
February 26, 2023
I've been meaning to read this book ever since I saw the TV movie back in the 70s. There's always more information in the book, and that was so true in this case. The story is full of people we still talk about today -- Norman Schwarzkopf! John Kerry! Even Michael Collins has a cameo in here! -- and it really brings back the flavor of the Cold War paranoia I remember from those days. This book really filled out my understanding of the Vietnam era. It's an eye-opening study of how no matter how bad things are in your life, you can always find a way to make things better, or worse, depending on how you decide to see it. RIP Sgt. Michael Mullen!
August 2, 2018
Emotional and powerful.
A well written account about an incident in Vietnam that tore a family apart. Mike Mullan was killed when an artillery shell fell short. The Army's habit of classifying these type of strategies as death by non-hostile events started an investigation by Mullan's parents that touched the entire anti war movement. Raw, riveting and incredibly sad.
A well written account about an incident in Vietnam that tore a family apart. Mike Mullan was killed when an artillery shell fell short. The Army's habit of classifying these type of strategies as death by non-hostile events started an investigation by Mullan's parents that touched the entire anti war movement. Raw, riveting and incredibly sad.
July 18, 2022
After watching the movie, starring Carol Burnett, I decided to read this book for a high school English assignment. Unfortunate tragedy in Vietnam, and the family who searches for the rest of the story.
September 5, 2017
disliked the mother
December 3, 2021
I read it in high school and it made such an impact. It made me a pacifist
October 20, 2022
3.5 for me
May 31, 2024
Very well researched and written. I was a teenager during that time and remember the protests and lack of political interest in getting our servicemen out of the war.
August 12, 2013
A must read for any American, or student of American history.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/mag...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/mag...
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews