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My Detachment: A Memoir
My Detachment is a war story like none you have ever read before, an unromanticized portrait of a young man coming of age in the controversial war that defined a generation. In an astonishingly honest, comic, and moving account of his tour of duty in Vietnam, master storyteller Tracy Kidder writes for the first time about himself. This extraordinary memoir is destined to become a classic.
Kidder was an ROTC intelligence officer, just months out of college and expecting a stateside assignment, when his orders arrived for Vietnam. There, lovesick, anxious, and melancholic, he tried to assume command of his detachment, a ragtag band of eight more-or-less ungovernable men charged with reporting on enemy radio locations.
He eventually learned not only to lead them but to laugh and drink with them as they shared the boredom, pointlessness, and fear of war. Together, they sought a ghostly enemy, homing in on radio transmissions and funneling intelligence gathered by others. Kidder realized that he would spend his time in Vietnam listening in on battle but never actually experiencing it.
With remarkable clarity and with great detachment, Kidder looks back at himself from across three and a half decades, confessing how, as a young lieutenant, he sought to borrow from the tragedy around him and to imagine himself a romantic hero. Unrelentingly honest, rueful, and revealing, My Detachment gives us war without heroism, while preserving those rare moments of redeeming grace in the midst of lunacy and danger. The officers and men of My Detachment are not the sort of people who appear in war movies–they are the ones who appear only in war, and they are unforgettable.
Kidder was an ROTC intelligence officer, just months out of college and expecting a stateside assignment, when his orders arrived for Vietnam. There, lovesick, anxious, and melancholic, he tried to assume command of his detachment, a ragtag band of eight more-or-less ungovernable men charged with reporting on enemy radio locations.
He eventually learned not only to lead them but to laugh and drink with them as they shared the boredom, pointlessness, and fear of war. Together, they sought a ghostly enemy, homing in on radio transmissions and funneling intelligence gathered by others. Kidder realized that he would spend his time in Vietnam listening in on battle but never actually experiencing it.
With remarkable clarity and with great detachment, Kidder looks back at himself from across three and a half decades, confessing how, as a young lieutenant, he sought to borrow from the tragedy around him and to imagine himself a romantic hero. Unrelentingly honest, rueful, and revealing, My Detachment gives us war without heroism, while preserving those rare moments of redeeming grace in the midst of lunacy and danger. The officers and men of My Detachment are not the sort of people who appear in war movies–they are the ones who appear only in war, and they are unforgettable.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
44 people are currently reading
655 people want to read
About the author
Tracy Kidder
27 books1,549 followersJohn Tracy Kidder is an acclaimed American nonfiction writer best known for combining literary narrative with journalistic precision. He gained national prominence with The Soul of a New Machine (1981), a Pulitzer Prize-winning account of computer engineers at Data General, noted for its insight into the emerging tech industry and the human stories behind innovation. He later earned widespread praise for Mountains Beyond Mountains (2003), a biography of physician and humanitarian Paul Farmer, which further solidified his reputation for blending compelling storytelling with social relevance.
Kidder studied English at Harvard and earned his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Though his first book, The Road to Yuba City, was a critical failure, he rebounded with a series of successful works exploring diverse topics: home construction (House), elementary education (Among Schoolchildren), and aging (Old Friends). He also served in Vietnam, though he says the war did not significantly shape his writing, despite authoring several well-regarded essays on the topic.
In 2010, Kidder became the first A. M. Rosenthal Writer-in-Residence at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center. There, he co-wrote Good Prose, a book on nonfiction writing. His work continues to be recognized for its empathy, narrative strength, and commitment to truth.
Kidder studied English at Harvard and earned his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Though his first book, The Road to Yuba City, was a critical failure, he rebounded with a series of successful works exploring diverse topics: home construction (House), elementary education (Among Schoolchildren), and aging (Old Friends). He also served in Vietnam, though he says the war did not significantly shape his writing, despite authoring several well-regarded essays on the topic.
In 2010, Kidder became the first A. M. Rosenthal Writer-in-Residence at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center. There, he co-wrote Good Prose, a book on nonfiction writing. His work continues to be recognized for its empathy, narrative strength, and commitment to truth.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 114 reviews
June 15, 2007
I picked up this title because I deeply enjoy Kidder's writing style. Any budding writers wanting to understand "voice," go read all of Kidder's work. I admit to a certain interest in trying to understand the generation of men who did or did not go to Vietnam and when I came across Kidder's memoir had an "oh good" reaction, ready for TK to set me straight on American life, like he did with Home Town. I am a fast reader, and I consumed My Detachment in an evening, though I knew I should have read it more slowly. It is a saddening tome, as Kidder pulls no punches and writes in a more spare style than usual about his disillusionment. His ability to scrutinize his own personality and the pointless human tendency to insist on trying to find meaning in a meaningless situation float like smoke on the reader's consciousness. This book is a masterpiece, as Kidder perfectly follows the old saw of "showing not telling" even when he is methodically and systematically pulling the gauze away from his unhealed psychic wounds. This is a meditative memoir to savor, not gobble in a night like I did, because the answers Kidder does provide are not easy ones to digest.
June 14, 2019
The Soul of a New Machine is one of my favorite books, an all time classic that transcends the bits and bolts of late 1970s computing to capture the ineffable process of invention. So when I saw Kidder had a memoir about his time in Vietnam, I picked this up.
Kidder goes back in memory to find his war and his past self. The problem is that his war is, frankly, boring, and his past self a callow youth. While a student at Harvard, Kidder signed up for ROTC for ill-defined reasons, before the war became a dividing line in a generation. He specialized in military intelligence, and wound up responsible for (I decline to use the phrase 'in command of') a eight man radio finding detachment. Kidder and his men were the REMFiest REMFs who never left the wire. His sergeant had a pair of boots he deliberately abused to feel like he was in the shit, and the entire unit would gather every night to watch Combat! on ABC. Kidder tries his best to befriend his men, to protect everyone from the bullshit of military authority, to fix the elusive NVA regiments on his division's maps. The plot, such as it is, is a series of pranks orchestrated by rebellious soldier Pancho, and a cycle of new commanders distinguished mostly by the unwanted attention that they bring to the unit.
A parallel arc is Kidder's strange, on-off, and frankly abusive relationship with a kind of cometary girlfriend, Mary Ann. An object of lust since childhood, Kidder guilts Mary Ann into accepting a ring before going to Vietnam, torments her with invented war stories of atrocities, and finally accepts the death of the relationship, a friendship destroyed by his inability to let it grow. Boys can be terrible, and for his degree and his bars, the Kidder of this story is very much not a man. The best parts of the book are the humor provided by the story within the story. In 1970, Kidder wrote a melodrama set in Vietnam called Ivory Fields, about an idealistic Lieutenant killed by his own men for intervening in a rape. The book was rejected by over 30 publishers before Kidder burnt the manuscript and went on to other things. There are excerpts, and it is truly awful. Even a Pulitzer Prize winning writer doesn't bat 100!
The fact is, for as much as the Vietnam War defined a generation, a lot of people who served did so without particular distinction or courage. They ran supply depots, maintained trucks, processed transfers, and triangulated radios. The REMFs deserve their own stories, but this is not it.
Kidder goes back in memory to find his war and his past self. The problem is that his war is, frankly, boring, and his past self a callow youth. While a student at Harvard, Kidder signed up for ROTC for ill-defined reasons, before the war became a dividing line in a generation. He specialized in military intelligence, and wound up responsible for (I decline to use the phrase 'in command of') a eight man radio finding detachment. Kidder and his men were the REMFiest REMFs who never left the wire. His sergeant had a pair of boots he deliberately abused to feel like he was in the shit, and the entire unit would gather every night to watch Combat! on ABC. Kidder tries his best to befriend his men, to protect everyone from the bullshit of military authority, to fix the elusive NVA regiments on his division's maps. The plot, such as it is, is a series of pranks orchestrated by rebellious soldier Pancho, and a cycle of new commanders distinguished mostly by the unwanted attention that they bring to the unit.
A parallel arc is Kidder's strange, on-off, and frankly abusive relationship with a kind of cometary girlfriend, Mary Ann. An object of lust since childhood, Kidder guilts Mary Ann into accepting a ring before going to Vietnam, torments her with invented war stories of atrocities, and finally accepts the death of the relationship, a friendship destroyed by his inability to let it grow. Boys can be terrible, and for his degree and his bars, the Kidder of this story is very much not a man. The best parts of the book are the humor provided by the story within the story. In 1970, Kidder wrote a melodrama set in Vietnam called Ivory Fields, about an idealistic Lieutenant killed by his own men for intervening in a rape. The book was rejected by over 30 publishers before Kidder burnt the manuscript and went on to other things. There are excerpts, and it is truly awful. Even a Pulitzer Prize winning writer doesn't bat 100!
The fact is, for as much as the Vietnam War defined a generation, a lot of people who served did so without particular distinction or courage. They ran supply depots, maintained trucks, processed transfers, and triangulated radios. The REMFs deserve their own stories, but this is not it.
December 19, 2016
This book was not exactly what I expected it to be. I was looking for a war book to read and I was hoping to get one that had some action in it. This one did not. While it was interesting to read about his experiences in the army, I was waiting for a fighting scene but never got it. Like I said it was an interesting book but if you're looking for a war book with action in it than this is not the one for you.
June 25, 2024
An unfortunate case of don’t meet your heroes. I’m sure many Vietnam vets have stories like this and his prefrontal cortex wasn’t fully developed yet but I did not like how Kidder acted and how immature he was. I hated everything about the Vietnam stories.
May 9, 2012
My previous experience with Tracy Kidder (Mountains Beyond Mountains) was all about someone else. This one is all about him. Or a version of him. My Detachment was published in 2005, thirty-five years after he finished his two-year army enlistment, so this is a man in his mid-fifties looking back at his twenty-four year old persona. Not always pleasant, but I must say he’s pretty merciless about his examination of the young man who joined the military and went to war.
Kidder joined the army out of Harvard for an array of vague and bad reasons. He knew he was against the war, but wasn’t all that sure why. He figured he would probably end up going and going as an officer would be better than as an enlisted man. He thought he wanted to be a writer and was looking for material. He thought maybe he could do some undefined good for someone. A girl friend had dumped him, and joining was a good way to earn her sympathy and effect a reunion. In everything, he is disappointed. The novel is rejected and burned, resurrected only because a friend sends him a forgotten copy. (in a piece of poetic justice, he uses passages from it in this memoir.) His girl friend sends him some sympathy letters, but is never interested in getting back together with him. Most of what he does as a second, then first lieutenant in charge of a small detachment of enlisted men seems of little or no value to the war effort, and the war itself continues to appear pointless even close to the front.
He does come under fire a couple of times, but is never in serious danger. His main threats come from the small group of bored and disorderly men he commands (or tries to) and from his own commanding officers, who think (alternately) that he’s doing fine or is too loose. According to Kidder, the kid who goes in the army does not come out a man, exactly, but he does have some maturing experiences. And it seems to me he gets through the whole thing by not involving himself too deeply. Thus, My Detachment, alludes not only to his military unit, but to his attitude, one that enables him to truthfully portray himself as a foolish, babyish youngster as well as to survive amid madness.
Kidder joined the army out of Harvard for an array of vague and bad reasons. He knew he was against the war, but wasn’t all that sure why. He figured he would probably end up going and going as an officer would be better than as an enlisted man. He thought he wanted to be a writer and was looking for material. He thought maybe he could do some undefined good for someone. A girl friend had dumped him, and joining was a good way to earn her sympathy and effect a reunion. In everything, he is disappointed. The novel is rejected and burned, resurrected only because a friend sends him a forgotten copy. (in a piece of poetic justice, he uses passages from it in this memoir.) His girl friend sends him some sympathy letters, but is never interested in getting back together with him. Most of what he does as a second, then first lieutenant in charge of a small detachment of enlisted men seems of little or no value to the war effort, and the war itself continues to appear pointless even close to the front.
He does come under fire a couple of times, but is never in serious danger. His main threats come from the small group of bored and disorderly men he commands (or tries to) and from his own commanding officers, who think (alternately) that he’s doing fine or is too loose. According to Kidder, the kid who goes in the army does not come out a man, exactly, but he does have some maturing experiences. And it seems to me he gets through the whole thing by not involving himself too deeply. Thus, My Detachment, alludes not only to his military unit, but to his attitude, one that enables him to truthfully portray himself as a foolish, babyish youngster as well as to survive amid madness.
August 3, 2010
The best part of this book is Mr. Kidder's writing skills. Part of the story he tells here includes relaying some of his "becoming a writer" history, and I'm glad he stuck with it (plus am glad he gave up fiction writing to focus on non-fiction "reportial" writing, based on some of his unpublished fiction that he quotes...). The "detachment" of the title is his detachment of soldiers when he was stationed in Vietnam, having become a First Lieutenant via Harvard ROTC. As expected, he's the young academic type with little worldly experienced who is assigned to a detachment of men who are from different "worlds" than Harvard and a silver spoon background. How he grows and and becomes more worldly educated in Vietnam is the general focus of the book. There's no real danger or excitement - one gets the sense that he's written this book to get this story off his chest - but given Mr. Kidder's strength as a writer, that's OK.
I listened to the audio version, which is read by the author, and I give him lots of points for making that effort (narrating an entire book can't be easy, even for the pros). Hearing him speak his own story gives the book that much more immediacy.
I listened to the audio version, which is read by the author, and I give him lots of points for making that effort (narrating an entire book can't be easy, even for the pros). Hearing him speak his own story gives the book that much more immediacy.
April 8, 2012
I'm a big fan of Tracy Kidder, I believe I have read every book he has written from Soul of a New Machine through House, Schoolchildren and Mountains. He writes like a journalist and injects very little of himself in his novels; he demonstrates great compassion and sensitivity towards his subjects. When turning the mirror onto himself though, he is a very harsh critic and portrays himself, however correctly, as an anti-hero looking for courage and unrequited love. What I liked about his compassion toward other subjects I wish he had also given to himself; without that, he reads like any other writer and one wonders why he took the time to write about someone he seems to hold in such contempt (his Vietnam self). It's an uncomfortable novel and the interspersing of passages from his failed first novel (which I found hard to follow and again very uncharacteristic of him as a mature writer) made for a very uneven read. I still will crave anything he writes now, but am sorry to have seen what has made him such a good biographer is an apparent self-disgust with his self-perceived lack of moral courage.
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February 5, 2009At its best, My Detachment resembles classic wartime satires like Catch-22 and M*A*S*H in its demonstration that the worst battles many soldiers face are against boredom and mindless military bureaucracy. Critics appreciated Kidder's eagerness to probe his lack of valor and his candor in disclosing his habit of inventing combat experiences to compensate for his unglamorous army career. It's an honest account of his military life. Yet it's also one that some critics considered pointless, as though time had failed to give Kidder the perspective to appreciate his sacrifice in fighting a war he could easily have avoided, as well as his good fortune in avoiding the combat that cost 58,000 American lives.
This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
August 11, 2023
In one way, this is a book about nothing. He goes to Vietnam, does very boring work, and mostly waits around. The interesting thing is how he captures the vanity and self-consciousness of a guy in his early 20s. He much more concerned about appearing heroic and manly than actually accomplishing anything in the world — it would serve his ex-girlfriend right and maybe earn him new girlfriends.
He also does a masterful job of capturing white, upper-class privilege—he becomes conscious of the myriad difficulties he didn’t have to undergo due to being White and having gone to Harvard, even though he was a clueless person.
Not many people can be so open about their bad qualities. He’s also a fantastic writer—his book Mountains beyond Mountains has been on my short list of all-time favorite books for many years.
He also does a masterful job of capturing white, upper-class privilege—he becomes conscious of the myriad difficulties he didn’t have to undergo due to being White and having gone to Harvard, even though he was a clueless person.
Not many people can be so open about their bad qualities. He’s also a fantastic writer—his book Mountains beyond Mountains has been on my short list of all-time favorite books for many years.
September 17, 2007
In this memoir of Kidder's stint in Vietnam, he pulls no punches, describing the callow youth he was with unrelenting candor. Fine writing and a fascinating tale.
November 18, 2016
"Maybe if we'd stopped and walked around that campus in our uniforms, we'd have found someone to spit on us. I wonder if I would have preferred that to the scene at the airport. Men and women in suits, families on vacations. I kept expecting that someone would accost me. I'd heard the stories. In fact, no one seemed to notice me. I wasn't offended, exactly. The camera had started running again. Soldier returns home in anonymity. He's been away a long time. He has changed. At the same time, I didn't want anyone, anyone at all, to see me in uniform. I felt ashamed, of the uniform itself, of almost everything I could remember doing in it, and of everything people would think I had done in it but, sad to say, I hadn't done. Meanwhile, I was happy. I was going home." ~Pg. 182, A Visitor
I became a massive fan of Tracy Kidder's non-fiction, observational works when I was an 18 year-old freshman in college, assigned to read "Among Schoolchildren." That book inspired me as a blossoming teacher and spurred me to read other of Kidder's works later on that I enjoyed just as much. I love the way that he takes everyday people and writes about their lives in a way that is utterly engaging and informing. So it was a no-brainer for me to read his own memoir, about his time in Vietnam.
Ugh. Turns out Tracy's war experiences were not very interesting. He has interviewed other Vietnam Vets and written about them. He should have stopped there and kept his own musings to himself. He was not someone I would have wanted to hang out with or would have found interesting. He appears to have been a very self-absorbed young man who didn't have any passionate beliefs one way or the other about things around him. He also appears to have recognized this, but didn't know what to do about it. Tracy liked to pretend he was living a life of world-changing action, impressive compassion, and overall interest. And I think he was actually jealous that he didn't have combat stories to share. He was a bit embarrassed that his rank excused him from such experience. So here we have the musings of someone struggling with who to be, how to be and where to fit in.
But it wasn't interesting or engaging to me. It was an expose about the joke that government and military bureaucracy has been and forever will be and about the inequities of war across our society. Disappointed in a thud of a memoir from a pulitzer prize winner that I admire. I won't hold it against him. He has an eye for interesting subjects and a great way of letting the reader experience the subtleties of life and transferring their realities to our own. I just didn't find this portrait of his youth interesting and could not relate to any of his Vietnam reality.
I became a massive fan of Tracy Kidder's non-fiction, observational works when I was an 18 year-old freshman in college, assigned to read "Among Schoolchildren." That book inspired me as a blossoming teacher and spurred me to read other of Kidder's works later on that I enjoyed just as much. I love the way that he takes everyday people and writes about their lives in a way that is utterly engaging and informing. So it was a no-brainer for me to read his own memoir, about his time in Vietnam.
Ugh. Turns out Tracy's war experiences were not very interesting. He has interviewed other Vietnam Vets and written about them. He should have stopped there and kept his own musings to himself. He was not someone I would have wanted to hang out with or would have found interesting. He appears to have been a very self-absorbed young man who didn't have any passionate beliefs one way or the other about things around him. He also appears to have recognized this, but didn't know what to do about it. Tracy liked to pretend he was living a life of world-changing action, impressive compassion, and overall interest. And I think he was actually jealous that he didn't have combat stories to share. He was a bit embarrassed that his rank excused him from such experience. So here we have the musings of someone struggling with who to be, how to be and where to fit in.
But it wasn't interesting or engaging to me. It was an expose about the joke that government and military bureaucracy has been and forever will be and about the inequities of war across our society. Disappointed in a thud of a memoir from a pulitzer prize winner that I admire. I won't hold it against him. He has an eye for interesting subjects and a great way of letting the reader experience the subtleties of life and transferring their realities to our own. I just didn't find this portrait of his youth interesting and could not relate to any of his Vietnam reality.
July 11, 2017
I wonder sometimes, what exactly people take from memoirs about the Vietnam War. This one seemed to me to be pretty honest in its assessments, and no doubt some might not want these recollections magnified. Some might label him a malcontent. But his observations ring true about the way things were often run there, about the attitudes of this army, and the goals and behavior of careerists. Yes, Kidder didn't support the war, but he did his duty (and apparently fairly well). Probably not any worse than most rear echelon soldiers, who made up the bulk of military in country. When I see the parade of guys in their Vietnam ballcaps, just how many really went out and engaged the enemy (and here I think about all the bronze stars handed out for just showing up, in Kidder's words). Of course death could come anywhere at any time, but I think about how our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, albeit volunteers, are seemingly engaged every day and for repeated tours. Somehow I doubt bases are as slovenly today, though I might be wrong about that. Overall, I thought it was interesting and honest. At times I thought he was still trying to shill for his novel. Future historians will have a wealth of material, such as this, to work with.
March 16, 2018
Four stars maybe too kind, but for the entertainment value of moments, it is fair. Readers get to experience the Vietnam War not at close range with the infantry, usually chosen from the poor and least educated, and not from the safer large bases or in cities. He was based up in the northern part, the highlands, but commanding a small radio-detecting intelligence unit reasonably safe from danger.
Kidder's mild mannered other books paint him as an intellectual, not a "blood and guts" violence prone type, so finding that he was in Vietnam during a dangerous time was a real surprise. He got in as a college ROTC cadet, expecting instead of being drafted to fight, to be stationed in the States. Instead, the joke was on him. The result was an anguished year in war and a second one Stateside. Readers are the better for it. We get to see what it takes to be a "leader" and how the stresses are dealt with (beer and self-deprecating humor). His R&R in Singapore could be a metaphor of his in-field leadership skills. Wearing what comic Drew Carey decades later called "birth control" black plastic glasses, his encounter with a hotel-provided prostitute is a case in point. Would that our present President were forced to wear similar glasses in his youth.
Kidder's mild mannered other books paint him as an intellectual, not a "blood and guts" violence prone type, so finding that he was in Vietnam during a dangerous time was a real surprise. He got in as a college ROTC cadet, expecting instead of being drafted to fight, to be stationed in the States. Instead, the joke was on him. The result was an anguished year in war and a second one Stateside. Readers are the better for it. We get to see what it takes to be a "leader" and how the stresses are dealt with (beer and self-deprecating humor). His R&R in Singapore could be a metaphor of his in-field leadership skills. Wearing what comic Drew Carey decades later called "birth control" black plastic glasses, his encounter with a hotel-provided prostitute is a case in point. Would that our present President were forced to wear similar glasses in his youth.
May 24, 2017
I have read every book that Tracy Kidder has written, starting with "The Soul of a New Machine." Big fan here. This one was quite different, as he's writing about himself and the two years he spent in Vietnam as a second, then first, lieutenant in command of a detachment (8 soldiers) of radio techs.
It's kind of horrifying to hear him describe himself (admittedly only 22-23 at the time) as such a vacuous, aimless, undifferentiated person; we usually don't see that level of honesty in a memoir, and it's chilling. He wrote letters to friends and family describing things that never happened, making himself out to be a hero of sorts when in fact he never saw combat at all, describing a Vietnamese girlfriend and a child he befriended (never happened). He was opposed to the war because friends he admired were opposed, yet he enlisted and went to OCS because he couldn't think of anything else to do after graduating from college.
His willingness to show that venal side of himself goes a long way to describe the dual nature of the book's title; "My Detachment" refers not only to the small cadré he commanded, but also to his own detachment from the subject of this book, himself.
It's kind of horrifying to hear him describe himself (admittedly only 22-23 at the time) as such a vacuous, aimless, undifferentiated person; we usually don't see that level of honesty in a memoir, and it's chilling. He wrote letters to friends and family describing things that never happened, making himself out to be a hero of sorts when in fact he never saw combat at all, describing a Vietnamese girlfriend and a child he befriended (never happened). He was opposed to the war because friends he admired were opposed, yet he enlisted and went to OCS because he couldn't think of anything else to do after graduating from college.
His willingness to show that venal side of himself goes a long way to describe the dual nature of the book's title; "My Detachment" refers not only to the small cadré he commanded, but also to his own detachment from the subject of this book, himself.
July 14, 2018
I found this at our local library as an audio book. I picked it up because I was interested in learning more about radio interception in Vietnam which was what his detachment did. I had my concerns when it said it was read by the author but decided I would give it a try as it is only 6 disks. I had no idea who the author was at the time.
As it turns out, it did have some information about radio interception but not a lot. However, I enjoyed listening to the book more and more as I fed the disks in. The time in Vietnam was the meat of the book and was a great read but all of was top notch. I enjoyed it so much I had to look him up, I should not have been surprised he is award winning author. What happens runs the whole range from appalling to interesting to sad to hilarious to who knows what.
What a lucky break!
As it turns out, it did have some information about radio interception but not a lot. However, I enjoyed listening to the book more and more as I fed the disks in. The time in Vietnam was the meat of the book and was a great read but all of was top notch. I enjoyed it so much I had to look him up, I should not have been surprised he is award winning author. What happens runs the whole range from appalling to interesting to sad to hilarious to who knows what.
What a lucky break!
June 8, 2024
Full disclosure: apparently, I am on some kind of Tracy Kidder time loop. I came across 'House' just as I was buying my first house. I then read 'Soul of a New Machine' in the early '80s, when I was working for a computer company as PCs were becoming a thing. Now, with a kid as a Lieutenant and on a first deployment, I discover 'My Detachment'. I suppose as we travel back in time together, there may be a book on boomer childhood, then one on the state of late 1950s childbirth...
How ever it pans out, this was a great read. Kidder straddles the line of accurate reporting, capturing the words and the feel of a time and an environment, with the beauty of a universal truth told, a voice at once unique and common. I look forward to our next shared moment.
How ever it pans out, this was a great read. Kidder straddles the line of accurate reporting, capturing the words and the feel of a time and an environment, with the beauty of a universal truth told, a voice at once unique and common. I look forward to our next shared moment.
December 10, 2021
I found this to an interesting book that brought back many memories of the Viet Nam war era. I didn’t serve in the armed forces as I was exempt from the draft. I viewed the war from a college campus, and opposed the war, particularly when I was in graduate school.
But, At the same time, I had deep positive feelings for the guys who had to serve. I had many classmates who served in that war, a few of which didn’t come back.
The characters in this book are very real, and reflect the diversity of people who did serve. Some of the stories are a little unreal, but the author identifies the bogus stories adequately for the reader to separate myths from real events.
But, At the same time, I had deep positive feelings for the guys who had to serve. I had many classmates who served in that war, a few of which didn’t come back.
The characters in this book are very real, and reflect the diversity of people who did serve. Some of the stories are a little unreal, but the author identifies the bogus stories adequately for the reader to separate myths from real events.
September 11, 2023
Well, I don't know. It seems the title of the book is meant to be the author's military assignment during the Vietnam war. It also depicts his sense of aloofness and eventual apathy toward his situation (the fact that he is in Vietnam at all - that he is serving in a war he despises). He may have been honest with who he was in those early adult years, but it definitely wasn't flattering and more self-deprecating than anything. I've heard good praise about his books, and am interested to read more; would be interested to know if he is still the same person. I found this interesting enough - yet sad in many ways.
May 20, 2023
I have read several of Tracy Kidder's books and they never disappoint. This memoir of his time in Vietnam as an Army First Lieutenant is shockingly honest. He fearlessly tells his story, warts and all.
I find it astonishing that he can remember some of the details he recounts. I guess my memory is just not that good. Or maybe I don't care to remember that kind of minutia. But enough about me, this is a book that is worth the read, especially if you've served. On second thought, there are a lot of things in this book that might rankle a hardcore servicemember.
I find it astonishing that he can remember some of the details he recounts. I guess my memory is just not that good. Or maybe I don't care to remember that kind of minutia. But enough about me, this is a book that is worth the read, especially if you've served. On second thought, there are a lot of things in this book that might rankle a hardcore servicemember.
May 17, 2024
As a 22-year-old boy just graduating from college, this book strikes a chord with me. The author writes about topics I see in myself and other young men around me. At times, his depiction of his own vanity is humorous. I really liked that story in the beginning about his drunken confession in the car. Unrequited love is a subject I truly started understanding recently. Feeling like you need to fit in to an image others have of you. Struggling to control yourself. These and many more themes really make me feel at home reading this.
February 8, 2025
3.5 stars. Tracy Kidder is an excellent writer, but this was a tougher read than Rough Sleepers. I’m not sure if it was because I’m personally more invested in the topic of Rough Sleepers or if it’s because he’s writing about himself. While he’s clearly spent a lot of time in reflection, it seems that he looks back on himself through a very harsh lens compared to others at that time with a sad listlessness. Nevertheless I appreciate his wry perspective of himself and his experiences, not just writing a war book
July 31, 2025
Double meaning of detachment: the group of enlisted men the author was in charge of in Vietnam and his sense of detachment from the war itself including from these very men. An interesting (and short) memoir of a wealthy young man who was able to enter the Vietnam War as an officer rather than being drafted, and his mostly boring days of his year “in country”. Very little of the carnage we usually see in memoirs about war; instead a focus on the men in his unit and on the author’s reflections about himself as he looks back on the young man he was 30 or so years ago.
June 25, 2019
The closing line from the Goodreads/publisher's blurb, "The officers and men of My Detachment are not the sort of people who appear in war movies–they are the ones who appear only in war, and they are unforgettable," summarizes, I think, the story that Kidder would like us to read/hear. There are a batch of characters who might make you laugh or cry, depending on your own experience - but they are seldom two-dimensional in Kidder's telling.
December 8, 2024
I enjoyed reading the book. It was well written and I learned about my own feelings of being drafted in 1969 during Vietnam. It took me 59 years to be ready to think about my experiences then and now. It stirred many emotions and helps me understand my own feelings today about today’s politics and my feelings towards “my new president”. Time can help heal us all, but this book gave me a reasonable view of what I faced and how it fits in with my life’s experiences.
June 25, 2025
Our GIs in Vietnam were largely leaderless. Of course there was a chain of command that directed activities but it was ineffectual. Reminds me of Lincoln during the civil war. He kept looking for a general that would fight and finally got Grant and Sherman. In Vietnam our generals acted like they were designing strategies for a game. They wanted to show they could win but in their hearts they knew their homes and families weren’t invested in the outcome.
A great glimpse into a soldiers life.
A great glimpse into a soldiers life.
December 6, 2017
I really wanted to rate this book higher but it left dissatisfaction behind. I was interested in how the assignment went and even enjoyed reading about the callow youth portrayed . I'm glad Ivory Fields was not published and this book would have been better without the parts of it Kidder added to this book. I have enjoyed Kidder before, just disappointed with this one - glad he matured!
April 23, 2018
(2018 bookshelf goal)
I didnt love this book. In fact, I dont really have much to say about it. I liked reading his anectdotes, certainly. But unfortunately I needed to have some working knowledge of the military and of war to understand everything...and I do not.
My favorite parts were when he was in Singapore.
I didnt love this book. In fact, I dont really have much to say about it. I liked reading his anectdotes, certainly. But unfortunately I needed to have some working knowledge of the military and of war to understand everything...and I do not.
My favorite parts were when he was in Singapore.
March 16, 2020
Another terrific book from this fine author. This memoir took me back to the Vietnam era, my own service and my friendships with college classmates who were sweating the draft. The mixed emotions, the political misrepresentations, and alternative perceptions of lifers, draftees, dropouts. This is certainly the most personal of Mr. Kidder's books. Highly recommended.
June 18, 2020
A stark description of the author's two-years in the military in Vietnam. The content, although interesting, was depressing. The author, young at the time, just graduated from Harvard, and from a privileged background, acknowledges his class background gave him advantages over others less fortunate. He did, however, develop into a skilful writer with interesting topics later in life.
December 14, 2018
I really liked the Soul of a new machine, but Kidder's other books have been disappointments.
He is really whiny here, and then someone tells him he "should be a man"
So that was his intention, he was aware of it, but what was the point?
He is really whiny here, and then someone tells him he "should be a man"
So that was his intention, he was aware of it, but what was the point?
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