The Phantom Blooper

by Gustav Hasford

Excerpts from the author's official website:

"Shut your scuzzy mouth, fat body, and listen up. I am going to give you the straight skinny, because you are the biggest shitbird on the planet. Your job is to stand around and stop the bullet that might hit someone of importance. In Viet Nam nice guys do not finish at all and monsters live forever. We are teenaged Quasimodos for the bells of hell and we are as happy as pigs in shit because killing is our business and business is good. The only virtue of the stupid is that they don't live long. The Lord giveth and the M-79 taketh away. If you're lucky, you'll only get killed. There it is. Welcome to the world of zero slack."

"We hump through a defoliated rain forest that is too dead even to smell dead. Ancient trees stand stark and black and stripped of leaves. The black trees are hung with limp windblown flowers that are parachutes from illumination shells.
Later we see trees that are as white as bone, sun-bleached skeletons of the great hardwoods, white trees with black leaves. The trunks and branches of the trees are warped by unnatural cancerous growths that look like human faces and human hands and human fingers growing out of decaying wood.
In the poisonous fields of the defoliated rain forest we see monsters, freaks, and mutants. We see a water rat with two heads and as big as a dog, birds with extra feet coming out of their backs, Siamese-twin bullfrogs joined at the stomach. The bullfrogs scurry for cover with clumsy and desperately frantic movements horrible to see, finally sinking into oozing slime inhabited by shadows that are alive and best never seen by human eyes.

"There are a lot of stories about the Phantom Blooper.
Below Phu Bai the Phantom Blooper is a black Marine Lieutenant who inspects defensive positions at bridge security compounds. The next night, they get hit.
North of Hue City the Phantom Blooper is a salt and pepper team of snuffy grunts who guide the Marine patrols into L-shaped ambushes set by the Viet Cong.
Force Recon claims a probable kill for shooting the Phantom Blooper in the Ashau Valley. The Phantom Blooper was a round-eye, tall and white, with blond hair, wearing black pajamas and a red headband, and armed with a folding-stock AK-47 assault rifle. Recon swears that—and this is no shit—the round-eyed Victor Charlie was the honcho, the leader, of the gook patrol.
The Phantom Blooper has many names. The White Cong. Super-Charlie. The American VC. Moon Cusser. The Round-Eyed Victor Charlie. White Charlie. Americong. Yankee Avenger.
But whatever name we use, we all know in our hearts the true identity of the Phantom Blooper. He is the dark spirit of our collective bad consciences made real and dangerous.
“Go home,” the Phantom Blooper says, every night. And we want to go home, we really do, but we don’t know how.
“Go home,” the Phantom Blooper says, without mercy, over and over, again and again, punctuating his sentences with explosions.


"If there is a novel that illustrates the extremes to which the American soldier in Vietnam was driven, then Gustav Hasford has written it... (The Phantom Blooper) is a major contribution to our continuing examination of the Vietnam War."
--John S. Nelson, professor of English at Saint Mary of the PlainsCollege

"Taken individually, each is a brilliant & singular portrayal of the war. Taken together, we have a kind of Vietnam epic... If you can find The Phantom Blooper and The Short-Timers, read them both together."
--Brian Siano, The Kubrick Site: Regarding 'Full Metal Jacket'




This book was actually completed before Full Metal Jacket was released in 1987, but for some reason not published by Bantam until 1990, at which time Gus put out a press release, wildy attacking his editor. An excerpt of the novel was printed in the January 1990 issue of Playboy. It is a more powerful, more personal story than The Short-Timers, in its description of life among the Viet Cong and how that affects Private Joker. If The Short-Timers details the making of an American solider, this book shows the unmaking. In Hasford's original draft, Joker's conversion was so complete that he became an active VC, going out and killing his fellow Marines. As the inside cover says, "Here is another major novel of the Viet Nam experience from one of its most startlingly able chroniclers... Joker's personal odyssey exposes a searingly honest, tragic, and brutal truth about the war that damned a generation and the betrayal that scarred us all." This was supposed to be the second volume of Gus's Viet Nam trilogy, but the final novel was never finished. The Phantom Blooper is currently out of print, but you can download the entire text right here!

Genres: Fiction, War, Military Fiction, Literature

243 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Jerry Gustave Hasford (November 28, 1947 – January 29, 1993), also known under his pen name Gustav Hasford was the author of two major novels of the Vietnam war, The Short Timers and The Phantom Blooper, as well as a third book, A Gypsy Good Time. At the time of his death in 1993, he was perhaps best known for a screenwriting credit he shared with filmmaker Stanley Kubrick and author Michael Herr for the film Full Metal Jacket (1987), a screen adaptation of The Short Timers. The film is regarded as being one of the greatest depictions of the Vietnam war.
Hasford was born in Haleyville, Winston County, on November 28, 1947, to Hassell and Hazel Hasford; he had one younger brother, Terry. Hasford's cousin, Jasper native Jason Aaron, is an award-winning comic book writer. After leaving high school
Gustav Hasford in Vietnam
in Russellville, Franklin County, in 1966, and refusing to take his graduation exams in protest over the state's poor education system, Hasford joined the U.S. Marine Corps and served in Vietnam as a combat correspondent with the First Marine Division. Upon his return from Vietnam, he moved with his parents to Washington State and attended Lower Columbia Community College, where he published his first story, which would later serve as the basis for The Short Timers, in the school newspaper.
The Short Timers was published in 1979, The Phantom Blooper in 1990, and A Gypsy Good Time in 1992. The Short Timers follows the story of Private Joker, a character supposedly based on Hasford himself, from basic training through the
Gustav Hasford Receives Navy Medal
Tet offensive in Vietnam. The Phantom Blooper once again features Joker as he comes to terms with the death of many of his friends and his own survival, through his time as a POW, and to his return to the United States. A Gypsy Good Time is a departure, best characterized as a parody of the hard-boiled detective novel genre.
Hasford came into conflict with director Stanley Kubrick over writing credits for the screenplay of Full Metal Jacket, which is based on The Short Timers. The financial bonanza that
Gustav Hasford, ca. 1979
Hasford expected from that film never materialized. Hasford also gained significant notoriety as a literary eccentric, described in newspaper stories as having secreted himself illegally with a "research" hoard of more than 700 books from libraries in the United States and Great Britain, some of them 12 years overdue. Hasford was arrested in 1988 on a charge of possessing stolen property; a San Luis Obispo, California, judge sentenced him to six months in the local jail.
Hasford was active in anti-war veterans' activities. At the time of his death at age 45 from untreated diabetes on January 29, 1993, Hasford was residing alone in Greece. He is buried in Winston Memorial Cemetery in Haleyville.

Wikipedia: Gustav Hasford

Reviews

[Glenn Russell]

THE PHANTOM BLOOPER - written with such ferocious intensity, you don't read this novel as much as you live it, scene by scene. page by page.

Former US Marine Gustav Hasford wrote two classic novels about the Vietnam War. The Phantom Blooper begins where his The Short-Timers ends.

"But whatever name we use, we all know in our hearts the true identity of the Phantom Blooper. He is the dark spirit of our collective bad consciences made real and dangerous. He once was one of us, a Marine. He knows what we think. He knows how we operate. He knows how Marines fight and what Marines fear.
The Phantom Blooper is a Marine defector who deals in payback. Slack is one word the Phantom Blooper does not understand."

The Phantom Blooper starts off with a Dedication: “This book is dedicated to the three million veterans of the Viet Nam War, three million loyal men and women who were betrayed by their country.”

Not exactly a tribute to the United States of America. I suspect this is one prime reason Gustav Hasford's novel is no longer in print.

Below his Dedication, Gustav Hasford includes an article from Newsweek magazine, August 1968, citing that following a skirmish near Phu Bai, US Marines discovered “Among the Viet Cong killed was the apparent leader of the guerrilla band - a slender young Caucasian with long brown hair.”

In the first section of the novel, the tale's narrator, a US Marine by the name of Joker, exchanges ominous thoughts and feelings with his fellow Marines revolving around the Phantom Blooper, a Marine who has gone over to the other side, the side of the Viet Cong. The Phantom Blooper is the stuff of myth; the Phantom Blooper is, by Joker's reckoning, "the dark spirit of our collective bad consciences made real and dangerous."

Talk is quickly replaced by action as the Marines come under fierce attack just at the point when US forces are taking steps to abandon Khe Sanh. In the aftermath of the battle, an unconscious Joker is taken prisoner by the Viet Cong.

The second section, the heart and guts of the novel, Travels with Charlie (blistering ironic spinoff of John Steinbeck's lyrical travelogue), covers Joker's years as a prisoner of war in a small Vietnamese village.

Gustav Hasford's words here are words of blood, sweat and fire. Thus, I'll tie my comments to the following direct quotes taken from this section:

"When I first came to the village over a year ago I said to myself: These are not reservation Indians. These Viet Cong people are not Asian mutants like the Vietnamese I saw as a Marine, not those sad, pathetic people with a cloned culture and no self-respect, greedy and corrupt, ragged shameless beggars and whores -Tijuana Mexicans. These Viet Cong people are an entirely different race. They are proud, gentle, fearless, ruthless, and painfully polite."

Initially, Joker spends his days, dawn to dusk, in the backbreaking task of harvesting rice right along side the women, men, children of the village.

"I'll never escape from Hoa Binh until the Viet Cong trust me enough to allow me to go on a combat mission. Until then, I must wait patiently and pretend to be a genuine defector or they will ship my scrawny ass nonstop to a broom closet in the Hanoi Hilton. If I've learned anything from these people, it is the power of patience. Escape will take time because my conversion must appear gradual and sincere.
There are no fools in this village."

Joker comes to recognize the Viet Cong see Americans more clearly than Americans see themselves, but Americans can't see the Viet Cong at all.

"As a Combat Correspondent I was part of the vast gray machine that does not dispense clean information. The American weakness is that we try to rule the world with public relations, then end up believing our own con jobs. We are adrift in a mythical ship which no longer touches land.
Americans can't fight the Viet Cong because the Viet Cong are too real, too close to the earth, and through American eyes what is real can only be a shadow without substance."

Joker's words speak to his becoming assimilated into not only village life but the land itself.

"We move through the black jungle as silent as ghosts. We don't fight against the jungle the way foreigners do. The jungle is alive and the jungle never dies. The jungle is the one thing you can't beat, and the fighters know it.
To the Americans the jungle is a real and permanent enemy. The jungle is undisciplined. The jungle does not respond to subpoenas. The jungle definitely is not going along with the program."

Joker is eventually taken on combat missions through the jungles with Viet Cong guerrillas. Understandably, Joker experiences conflicting thoughts and emotions (understatement) as he prepares to face off against US troops. Joker senses he himself has now become the Phantom Blooper.

"Heavy boots crunch into dry scraps of rotten bamboo. Voices drift in on the wind, heavy voices, deep voices that talk slowly.
A helmet covered with camouflage canvas emerges an inch at a time from a wall of jungle that is a hundred shades of green. Half of a sweaty face appears, eyes looking up for snipers and down for booby traps and antipersonnel mines. Then a bulky sun-faded flak jacket. Then the black barrel of an M-16.
The point man is a Marine snuffy, breaking trail with a machete.
I'm not sure I can hack this shit. These are not Elephants, they're Black Rifles- Marines. What am I supposed to do, shoot them or buy them a beer?"

The drama builds and builds. What happens from this point forward is for every reader to discover.

The Phantom Blooper is available in its entirety online, free-of-charge via this link: https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/V...


American author Gustav Hasford, 1947-1993

[Adam McPhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A poetic and action-packed critique of empire.

This starts as over-the-top as The Short Timers and keeps ramping up until it reaches a sort of Célinean hysteria with the Black Confederacy leading a mutiny just as the Vietcong overrun the base. But after that comes the real shock: a sort of softness you would not have expected Gustav Hasford to exhibit. It becomes a non-SF Avatar, literally just Private Joker healing himself with life among the Vietcong. But that peacefulness can't last, and caring about people on both sides of the war is only going to rip you apart.

[Stevec · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would give this 3.5 stars out of 5 if the rating system on here let me. While I do not think is is nearly as good as The Short Timers, I think Gustav Hasford was a very talented writer who had the sophomore slump with his second novel, in what was intended to be a trilogy about the life of the Marine known as Private Joker. This deals with Joker being taken as a prisoner of war by the Viet Cong, but he is allowed to live freely with them in a village and it is not the typical tale of a P.O.W. story. Some of the writing in here is fantastic, but it comes in short bursts and Hasford cannot keep the whole story flowing. There are some political leanings in here that might turn some people off(which I won't delve into because of plot details), but my problem was more with how Hasford was trying to convey his own feelings about the Vietnam War. At times I felt like I was reading a manifesto or political pamphlet instead of a novel, as Hasford's political convictions came across in clunky, bogged down rhetoric. I do think his ideas come together in the third part of the novel and he does a great job of weaving his ideas together, but it takes almost 200 pages for him to reach that transition. I still think he has penned two important works of fiction about the Vietnam War and it is a shame his books and stories are all out of print. I would have been interested to see how he intended this trilogy to end, but he ended up dying before being able to complete it. Anyone interested in Vietnam War history or fiction should try to seek this out.

[Gary Letham · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Phantom Blooper concludes the story of Private/Sergeant/Private Joker, the protagonist of The Short Timers. The novel is again split into three parts. The first set in the last days of the Khe Sanh combat base in 1968. Joker busted down to private again mourns the loss of Cowboy, his friend in the first book who he had to shoot to save him being used as a human target by an enemy sniper. He spends his days sleeping his nights naked apart from Cowboys stetson and an M60, keeping his eyes peeled for the Phantom Blooper, the mythical white VC, an American soldier who has swapped sides. He fears the Blooper will be his nemesis. Although a private he is a marine with experience and "coaches" newbies with the voice of Gunnery Sergeant Gurheim, hoping it might help save their lives. During a vicious firefight on the final night before evacuation he finds himself outside the wire, isolated and wounded. His last memory before losing consciousness is being dragged by the ankles into the jungle.
Part two starts almost a year later in a Vietnamese village, it is a VC village, but is given the all clear by the local warlord to the Americans, in exchange for hefty bribes. In this village, Joker finds a certain contentment, it takes him back to the simplicity of his own agricultural upbringing in Alabama, feels similar feelings of occupation of one culture on another, harking to the North/South divide of the USA and civil war. The village elder, a woodcutter sees something in Joker and vouches for him to avoid being sent to Hoa Lo prison as a POW. The elder wishes to assimilate Joker into their culture, eventually hoping to create a Phantom Blooper. Joker plays the situation, hoping to find a way to escape once he is trusted enough. Eventually he is sent on a combat mission, armed with only a megaphone for propaganda during the attacks. Things do not go according to plan and Joker ends up aquitting himself well in front of his fellow VC, gains more trust but returns to the village. Shortly after this the Warlord comes to renegotiate his contract, and is turned away by the elder. Shortly after the village come under a vicious US Army attack, and many of Jokers comrades are killed. Joker, again wounded is discovered wounded and flown to hospital.
Part three finds Joker in a naval hospital, honoured by the US for heroism. During a review with the psychiatrist Joker in his usual manner tells him what he thinks about the American government and is recommended for a medical discharge. Joker finds his way home to America via Los Angeles and a violently put down anti war protest by veterans and is only saved from arrest by an ex marine buddy who is now a policeman. Joker eventually finds his way back to his hometown via a trip to visit Cowboys parents. The hometown of his pre war memory has gone, the innocence is destroyed. His mother has recently remarried a man who believes marines and soldiers leech off the taxpayer. He is told he can stay a certain time and then must leave. A violent incident occurs with Jokers stepfather, and the stepfather ends up soiling himself. That night Joker decides to leave next day and return to Vietnam as a civilian to the village he now feels as home. He gives a huge chunk of his back pay to his little sister, telling her once she is old enough to get as far away from this place as she can.
Loved this book, took me a bit to get back into Hasford's style, but once your there, its very sad to leave, knowing this was his last book before he died. It is brutal, it is funny and very worth reading

[Christian D. D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book I finally tracked down and read, 28 years after it was first published (1990, the year after I first read the author's prequel "The Short Timers" and saw the legendary Stanley Kubrick film "Full Metal Jacket" upon which it was based).

I don't care much for the author's leftist politics (depicting the Viet Cong and NVA as some kind of noble and admirable angels fighting for their homeland while blithely ignoring that the South Vietnamese were fighting for their homeland too), but some of his more libertarian musings (on the Confederacy, on the sorry state of the federal government and pogue bureaucrats, etc.) are quite spot-on, and book definitely holds your interest and never gets dull. RIP and God bless, Gus Hasford.

RANDOM STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS (and noteworthy passages):

--pp. 40-41: Joker shooting the NVA soldier multiple times with his Tokarev; yet another infamous example of a 9mm failure to stop?

--p. 46: "Six-by;" same as an Army deuce-and-a-half?

--p. 49: "'Sin Loi'" = "Tough shit."

--p. 53: "brain housing group," haha!

--p. 54: "the only truly American art form, the surgical strike"

--p. 79: Lookup: Dac Cong = Viet Cong Special Forces?

--p. 86: "'General Giap is only five feet tall and weighs less than one hundred pounds.'" Would the Vietnamese be speaking in metric rather than English/Avoirdupois measurements (especially being a former French colony)?

--p. 115: "'Do you know Jane Fonda?....She's an American too.'" Fuck that traitorous cunt Hanoi Jane!!

--p. 119: So then, Communist attacks on the Montagnards were actually a CIA false flag operation, eh? Okay, Gus, sure, whatever. 🙄

--p. 162: "an old woman in a patched UCLA Bruins sweatshirt seals the top of the Coke can...." University of Communist Left-wing Atrocities indeed.

--p. 211: Turns out Cowboy's real name is John Rucker (same as one of my middle school and high school classmates)!

--p. 216: "The Russians, who have never fired so much as a pea shooter at an American soldier...." Um, okay Gus, not unless you count the USSR's MiG-15 pilots working on behalf of North Korea from 1950-53 (299 Soviet KIA, 335 planes lost) fighting against our own aviators.....or the ones building the SAM sites that shot down our aviators over Vietnam.

--p. 217: "But the Confederate dream lives on. The Confederate Dream, a desperate and heroic attempt to preserve from federal tyrants the liberty bequeathed to us by Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin." In this PC day & age, the author would be labelled a "racist" for saying that.

[Ryan Strimple · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the first part and the last part of this second novel by Hasford. I felt that the middle part where Joker is a POW is a little clunky at times and doesn’t flow as well. That’s why I give this one four stars.

This novel opens with Joker on mop up duty. Already mentally broken by the horrors he experiences in the first novel. He gets captured by VC but is treated humanely and gets to know his captors quite well, earning their trust. I don’t want to say much more than that due to spoilers.

I felt that his time as POW drug on a little too long. The book is not that long, but I wish there was more development of his character before he is captured. If you are considering reading this one, you must read Short Timers first as this story simply won’t make sense.

Hasford still gives the reader vivid descriptions. You feel like you are there. He is still a master at describing the horror and visceral nature of guerrilla warfare. From the muddy tunnel systems, to the pink mist of blood from medivac helicopters, to the chopping of M60 brass, you are with Joker every step of the way.

Even though the middle section is not as strong narratively, I did feel a sense of connection to his VC captors. When they met their fates, I felt the emotion.

The final third is perhaps the best. It is extremely politically motivated and anti-war. I was not shocked by this at all. I think Hasford did an impeccable job of showing how assimilating back into “the world” was merely impossible for a lot of these veterans. The interaction with the step-father at the end had me floored. I felt as pissed as Joker. That’s a testament to Hasford’s excellent writing. The experience of returning to your home town that has left you behind feels all too real.

Overall, it’s too bad these two novels are out of print. They are very good and should be required reading to anyone studying American history or war. I hope to pick up physical copies of these someday to keep on the shelf and re-read.

[Jordan Neufeld · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is wild. The escalation in the second third is kind of insane. The third chapter definitely has its moments as well.

A really solid sequel. Builds on the foundations of the Short-Timers but explores the war from a variety of perspectives. Black John Wayne’s perspective in the first chapter is a highlight.

Joker was a good point of view character to look at key historical ideas within the Vietnam war. The Confederate American identity of Joker is emphasized a lot in the third chapter and adds a bit of complexity to him, which is giving me something to think about.

I think this series will probably be read by only the sickos, which is tragic because I’d love to know what a normie would do if they read this book. Do people come into this book not knowing the absolute scrotum stomp it is?

[Bernie Weisz]

Title of Review: "Gustav Hasford:Capital Punishment For Library Violations"!

In reading Gustav Hansford's "The Phantom Blooper", as a historian my gist was to extract any parallels to reality that occurred in the quaqmire of America's debacle in Vietnam. While finding that out and much more, I also discovered how much of an enigma Hustav Hansford truly was. Born November 28th, 1947 in Russellville, Alabama, Hansford was a U.S. Marine and served as a combat correspondent in Vietnam. He wrote a semi-autobiographical novel after the war, called "The Short-Timers" which was later made into a best selling movie called "Full Metal Jacket", co-auuthored by director Stanley Kubrick and writer Michael Herr. It was nominated for an Academy Award. Ultimately, Hansford's contributions became a point of contention between the three, and Hasford abstained from attending the Oscar Awards.

Two years before Hasford authored "The Phantom Blooper", he was arrested in San Luis Obispo, California for stealing almost 800 books across the U.S. and Great Britain. He was accused of having "bibliophilia", an obsessive-compulsive disorder that centers on the collecting and acquiring of books to the point where social relations are ignored and health declines. Books are pursued by the sufferer of this psychological condition to the point where they are not to be admired or read, but simply to be obsessively possessed. Hansford's defense at his trial, costing over $20,000, was that he had "borrowed" the missing books to serve as the basis for an ultimately never published book on the U.S. Civil War. He was sentenced to half a year in jail, of which he served 90 days and vowed to pay fines derived from the royalties that resulted from future sales of "The Phantom Blooper", published in February, 1990.

Hansford did write a final novel, "A Gypsy Good Time" which was a detective story set in Los Angeles and was published in 1992. This book was barely noticed and with Hasford's health rapidly declining from the debilitating effects of diabetes, he moved to Aegina, a small island off the coast of Greece where he eventually died of heart failure on January 29, 1993.
Hasford had an interesting way of explaining why the Vietnam War was not winnable. After "the Tet Offensive", 1969 brought the highest "death toll" of U.S. combat troops in a single year. R.F.K. and Martin Luther King were assassinated, L.B.J. declined to run again for a 2nd term and the American public lost their patience with the nightly K.I.A tallies and unfulfilled promises of there being "light at the end of the tunnel" for a successful conclusion to the war in S.E. Asia. In "The Phantom Blooper", after his protagonist was captured by the V.C. and planned his escape, Hasford wrote of "Joker" in trying to feign assimilation into the V.C. and plot his escape back to U.S. forces: ""In the jungle, without weapons or food, I'll die. I must wait patiently to be a genuine defector or they will ship me away to the Hanoi Hilton. If I've learned anything from these people, it is the power of patience." Clearly, the false perception of winning the Vietnam War through enemy attrition would never work, according to Hasford. Ultimately, this proved to be on target. Unlike the Oriental mentality, Western patience with American involvement in Vietnam was at it's end.
As with most memoirs, all U.S. troops in the field served a 1 year tour, and it was the "F.N.G" (the new guy") that seasoned troops were leery of. Hasford wrote of them: "You've got to keep New Guys alive until they realize that we're not going to win this war, which usually takes about a week." Hasford also touched on corruption, prostitution and the black market that went on during the war, especially with the the paradigm of a G.I. trading a truck full of hand grenades for heroin.
Before the capture of the protagonist of his story, "Joker", Hasford clearly maintained in the storyline about the enemy: "We can kill them, sometimes, but we are never going to beat them. All Viet Cong farmers are press-ganged at the point of a gun, brainwashed and shot full of heroin. The V.C. have magic powers which allow them to sink into the soil and disappear. Hasford concluded this book with very painful issues, such as America's attempt to deny "Vietnam Veterans Against The War" the right to express their indignation of this country's conduct in the war, their sense of betrayal, and how in some cases Vets were seen as drug crazed baby killers and psychopaths. Issues such as losing one's family, unemployment, and disgust at insincere "K.I.A. condolence letters" written to family members of the deceased are all addressed. It is interesting to note that as this was true in many cases, Gustav's protagonist was embarrassed to be home after military separation, considered himself a killer, and was homesick for the adrenalin that only the rush of Vietnan would provide and cure. It is interesting that Hansford has "Joker" assert at the end of the book: "I'm not even 21 years old and I've killed more than Billy the Kid". Clearly, this novel is a book that between the covers will teach the reader more about what went on in Vietnam over 40 years ago than most history books combined will inculcate.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book continues the story of the Marine known as "Joker" who appeared in the book Shorttimers, which became the film Full Metal Jacket. It follows Joker as he is captured by the Vietcong and lives with them for a year. His story is not one of isolation and torture but of gradual transformation as he realizes the parallels between the land-based society of the fighters and the farming community values he was raised with in Alabama. The book is a scathing critique of the hijacking of the "real" American dream by "corporate gangsters" and their lackeys, our elected officials.

It calls to mind Dr. King's speech in which he pointed out that the Vietnamese based their own founding documents on the United States' own Declaration of Independence, not some sinister communist treatise.

Every day Joker plans his escape and every day he works in the fields, tends animals, cares for and plays with children and watches up close the impact of such things as inaccurate U.S. artillery on the community that keeps him captive.

This story has become precious to me because it represents at once the savagery and ignorance that people often wield with the best intentions and it is at times a tragic or comedic look at how willingly we Americans have traded the righteousness and moral imperative of our nation's founding for our own comfort and convenience. And how unfulfilling that comfort and convenience, in the end, are to so many of us.

Be warned, it uses a lot of military jargon.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to start by saying that his first book in the story of Joker the marine called the short-timers was literally the best book I've ever read. Gustav hasford has an amazing way of writing that just immerses the reader in the story that makes you feel like you can almost feel the situation and surroundings. He words things with such intelligence that puts life and perspectives in a way that either solidifies or destroys whatever views the reader may have. This book does that once again. However the story itself wasn't what I was hoping for. If you've read the book the short-timers or even watched the movie full metal jacket you can get an idea of the Joker character. Seems to break from it as the story develops. The book seemed to start out like how it's supposed to go then turns into a Vietnam version of To kill a mockingbird. It was a great start and a great finish. Put a lot of perspective on the war and issues with veterans and just genuinely what it must feel like to return from war/conflict. In the end I give it a 4 literally just because the actual writing and story telling is amazing just the story itself was disappointing and out of character. I read the short-timers honestly around 10 times and could easily pick it up right now. I wouldn't plan on reading this again except maybe the start and finish

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

"GET SOME!”

Private Joker is back in a novel that is every bit as memorable as The Short-Timers and Hasford’s screenplay for Full Metal Jacket. Hasford’s dark, sneering voice as expressed through Joker would be borderline-parody if it weren’t so true. But it’s a truth founded in an essential myth of war -- one that Hasford examines in the final section of the novel. This is not so much how soldiers speak and think, but how they imagine themselves thinking and speaking. (Werner Herzog would call this an “ecstatic truth.”) The only way I can describe this glorious writing is to say it’s like Hunter S. Thompson wrote the screenplay for Apocalypse Now, inspired by Patton’s speech to the Third Army and performed by R. Lee Ermey. If you enjoy any of those cultural touchstones purely for the aesthetic pleasure of their poetic vulgarity -- the use of ornate and grotesque language/imagery to describe war and violence in terms that are beautiful, absurd, horrifying, comic, surreal, and brutal, primarily as a way to impart truth through exaggeration -- then you need to read this novel.

And if that weren’t enough, the plot is a dark parody of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and a direct sequel to The Short-Timers. Private Joker, now fully emerged in his World of Shit, gets captured in Viet Cong territory. But this isn’t just some Gonzo-crazed version of Apocalypse Now. In many ways, it’s even more cynical, sinister, satirical, bitter, and funny, but it also contains a middle section that is an empathetic, compassionate, and humane depiction of the Viet Cong. Indeed, Joker’s time with the so-called “enemy” is the point in both novels where he begins to abandon the dehumanizing, monstrous language and actions of the American soldiers. As Joker discovers honest peasants fighting for their homeland, his shift in perspective -- and the language Hasford uses to express Joker's "deprogramming"-- is as dramatic as the famous shift in tone of Full Metal Jacket after bootcamp.

Apparently this was written before Hasford worked on the screenplay to Full Metal Jacket, and several lines and scenes were included in the film, including dialogue that was combined with words and scenes from The Short-Timers. So in this novel, we see some familiar lines: “inside every [Vietnamese] there is an American trying to get out...”; “You got girlfriend Viet Nam? Me so horny...I love you too much...”; and “If we run, we're VC, and they shoot us. If we stand still, we are well-disciplined VC, so they shoot us anyway.” If I had known so many choice lines were drawn from this second novel for the screenplay, I would have read it back-to-back with The Short-Timers. In fact, it should be read back-to-back. No only should both of these amazing novels still be in print, but they should be published together in a single volume.

I can’t offer enough praise for the brilliance of Hasford’s slang-infused prose. Every page has a quotable line -- often several. Even the section titles are great: “Travels with Charlie'' is genius as both a literal description of the middle section of the book, but also a play on Steinbeck’s novel ( Travels with Charley ), which is an odyssey into the early-60s American psyche, much as Hasford’s novel is a transgressive subversion of that kind of mythologizing narrative. (If Steinbeck is Odysseus, then Joker is Orpheus descending into Hades.) The manic, rapid-fire one-liners and poetic rhythm of the jargon is beyond even the most Gonzo writings of HST and would almost be exhausting to read if it weren’t so addictive. Private Joker has clearly internalized the language of Gunnery Sergeant Gerheim (named Hartman in the film) from his time in Parris Island, and even quotes those lines to the New Guys as a way to scare them into line. Joker does this, as he says, not to prevent the New Guys from getting themselves killed, but to prevent them from getting him killed. This is the newly reborn Joker who emerged from his time in Hue City as a damaged and deranged grunt. His character’s transformation in this novel is Hasford’s sharpest critique of the dehumanizing and debilitating effect (on both Americans and Vietnamese) of a bungling, ineptly managed war machine that forces men to fight a losing battle for all the wrong reasons. The final section of the novel is a memorable rebuke of American hubris and militarism, and the impact it has on successive generations.

As with The Short-Timers, this is only available in libraries with large holdings (academic or big city public libraries) unless you have one hundred dollars (at least) to purchase a copy from eBay -- which might not be a bad way to spend a hundred bucks, really. The Phantom Blooper is a first-rate anti-war novel and has one of the most memorable closing images I’ve ever read.

“There it is.”

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sequel to The Short Timers, the book that spawned Full Metal Jacket. The author's bitterness is clearly on display here. Entertaining read, but covers a lot of the same ground as a lot of other material on the post-Vietnam period.

[James Atkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R-IcB...

A refreshing take of the Vietnam genre. After a rather poor opening, it really picks up with action on the home front and in the Viet Cong. Worth finding out.

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely incredible book...the fact his work has remained out of print so long is a travesty, but at the same time, makes sense - Hasford was brutally honest, didn't mince words, and hated pogues with a passion. Pogues run the world though unfortunately; and they don't want you reading this book.

[Jim Golmon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another terrific Vietnam "novel" by Hasford. If anything, this one is even better than "The Short-Timers" as it includes long sections pertaining to life among the Viet Cong.

[Nikita Mihaylov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Бледный блупер возвращается домой

Первый обзор на русском языке!

Сразу скажу, что книга на голову выше первой части, возможно потому, что фильм Кубрика довольно точно, и без особенных правок передал сюжет и атмосферу 'The Short-Timers'. Лучше посмотреть фильм.

Структурно в книге три части. Первая открывается битвой за Кхесань, вывод войск из которой входит в завершающую фазу. Тем не менее Въетконг пытается штурмовать американские позиции, обе стороны несут большие потери, и все это совершенно бессмысленно. Как говорит один из морпехов, завтра в нашем французском блиндаже будут спать вьетнамские офицеры, и ничего не поделаешь. Джокер из первой части, очевидно, страдает от тяжелого ПТСР после того как застрелил Ковбоя, своего лучшего друга, на которого Въетнамский снайпер пытался выманить их отряд, отстреливая от него по кусочку, на это накладывается общее разочарование в войне. Джокер пытается поймать мифического американца-предателя с гранотометом, (в том числе на живца филателиста), но в конце-концов сам попадает в плен.

Вторая часть описывает пасторальную жизнь в въетнамской деревне. Джокер сам рос на ферме, и резко противопоставляет американское общество 'телевизора' простым людям, которые живут близко к земле. Особенно его удивляет, что его не запытали, а позволили жить и работать наравне с остальными. Он даже участвует в боевой операции, пусть без оружия, и в конце проникается восхищением этими людьми. Не коммунизмом, но самоотверженным трудом людей в нечеловеческих условиях. В конце эпизода товарищи-морпехи, заметившие Джокера во время авиаразведки, высаживаются в деревне, походя убивая и насилуя все что движется. Джокер стреляет из гранотомета в вертолет, его, раненного, увозят на медэваке. В одной из последних сцен раненный морпех коверяется пальцами в ране беременной женщины, та тихо поскуливает.

Третья/четвертая часть описывает госпиталь в Японии и возвращение в Алабаму. Помимо столкновения с тыловыми крысами и отрядами калек, здесь Джокера накрывает глубоким разочарованием в том, что они делали. Он заезжает к родителям Ковбоя, и понимает, что они очень мало знали сына, поэтому тот и отправился в Нам. Как и сам Джокер, по большому счету. В родительском доме его тоже никто не ждет ,особенно учитывая его новые взгляды. Отчим рассуждает о том что он идиот, раз не смог закосить как он сам, и писается, когда Джокер приставляет Токарев (незаряженный) к его голове. Он оставляет деньги сестре и уезжает обратно домой, в Хаобинь.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's really a huge shame that Hasford's books are out-of-print. That's such an insult to injury for a Vietnam vet who returned stateside from a morally questionable war in a time before anyone really understood PSTD. How can you survive the jungle and still make art like this? And then to have it rendered nearly inaccessible because it's out-of-print is unfair. Maybe too much like war. "Payback's a bitch," he might say, echoing his characters.

Here are some excerpts that I like and are sticking with me like brain shrapnel.

"That's why New Guys are so dangerous. They're thinking all the time about how light refracts through water to create rainbows and why a seed grows and about how they used to cop a feel on Suzie Rottencrotch and so they don't see the tripwire. When they get killed, they have so many things on their minds that they forget to stay alive" (15).

"The American weakness is that we try to rule the world with public relations, then end up believing our own con jobs" (91).

"When you kill someone you own them forever. When your friends die, they own you. I am a hunted house; men live in me. Every time I dream about Cowboy the nightmare ends in a fearful splattering of blood and I wake up in a cold sweat, wanting to scream, but afraid to give away my position" (211).

The "Do you remember" section on page 51 is perhaps the saddest and most powerful bit for me. But I guess you'll have to pick up a copy to read it.

Recommended for anyone needing a reminder about the preciousness of life.

[Vicente Ribes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good novel. I always wanted to know how Joker's story continued and this book is as good as the full metal jacket. The beginning at ke sahn base, the time with the vietcong and the heartbreaking return to home are full of an anti war feeling and greatly written. This book also deserves a good film adaptation.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

“…In America we lie to ourselves about everything and we believe ourselves every time.”

Harrowing and intense novel about the Vietnam War. Served as some(most?all?) of the source material for Full Metal Jacket.

[Sudhanshu Bhandari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got to know the other side of war.The journey of joker and his memoirs about the platoon is shown in first part but the phantom blooper also has interesting encounters of Viet Cong vs grunts..

[Jurgen Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it, it is harsh, hardcore, Fd up, and raw. Great to find out the rest of the story of private joker.

[Robert Deschain · Rating 5 out of 5]

More aptly titled The Short Timers 2, this book continues the true-to-life Vietnam story told by Gustav. Great novel.

[S C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much better than the The Short-Timers.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worthy follow up to The Short Timers continues Jokers Vietnam escapades. The section "TRavels with Charlie" gives a good look into the "enemies' mindset and lifestyle during war.

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Phantom Blooper by Gustav Hansford (Bantam 1990) (Fiction - Thriller). This is the sequel to The Short Timers which was the book on which Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" was based. My rating 7/10, finished 1/1/2009.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I did. Just wasn't there. The "character" of the 'phantom blooper', however, is pretty interesting.

[Leonard Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing, little-read sequel to Hasford's more famous "The Short-Timers", this follows the life of Private Joker after he's captured by the VC. Stunning, angry and surreal.

[Dan · Rating 1 out of 5]

possibly 1 of the worst books I've ever read--EVER--

[Jason Pastor · Rating 3 out of 5]

not bad, but it is not the Shorttimers. Really bogsdown in the middle, was tough to finish

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good. Fantastic.