Who Shot the Water Buffalo?: A Novel

by Ken Babbs

Lieutenant Tom Huckelbee, leathery as any Texican come crawling out of the sage, and Lieutenant Mike Cochran, loquacious son of an Ohio gangster, make an unlikely pair training to be Marine chopper pilots on their way to Vietnam. The dynamic takes the reader from a couple of know-nothing young men straight out of flight school, to Marine aviators caught in the middle of a disorienting war. Tough and comical, quiet and boisterous, and always vivid and poetic, Babbs is a writer at the top of his craft. Who Shot the Water Buffalo? manages to capture the world in all its guts and glory through the eyes of a young man discovering what it means to be beholden to another. A book not to be missed.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, War, Literature, Military Fiction

317 pages, Hardcover

First published March 3, 2011

About the author

Ken Babbs attended Stanford University and is the last member of the legendary Wallace Stegner Stanford writing class (Ken Kesey, Wendell Berry, Ernest Gaines, Larry McMurtry, Robert Stone) to write a novel. Babbs served in the USMC from 1959 to 1964, and was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. A famous Merry Prankster who became one of the psychedelic leaders of the 1960s, he, along with best friend and Prankster leader, Ken Kesey, wrote Last Go Round (1994) about the oldest and largest rodeos in America. He lives in Dexter, Oregon and is the founder of the Sky Pilot Club."

Reviews

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

According to the acknowledgements, Ken Babbs first wrote his manuscript in 1962 (during his tour of duty), but then lost it. A squadron mate had a copy and returned it to Babbs forty years later, leading to its eventual publication.

There are two things that strike me about that. One is that there are ways in which this feels much more like a novel of the '60s, including its being written in the present tense. That is for all of the novel except for a brief afterword, but each chapter starts with a kind of a stream of consciousness back and forth of the narrator talking to a doctor. His shoulder is injured and his mind is wandering.

There is a fair amount of wandering in the main narration as well, with lots of wordplay and some philosophy. It is understood early on that the course of the narration will lead to the point where the shoulder injury happened, bringing the two together. It is not as immediately clear how much the two threads will began to resemble each other - how the time spent in Vietnam will start to seem more and more like a fever dream.

Early on, when Hucklebee and Cochran are still in training, they attend an absurdist dinner party where an admiral and his wife alternately take the trainees for secretive drinks, protecting the other alcoholic spouse from temptations while also refusing to give into storm and floods. I think those attitudes must in retrospect fit Vietnam a lot, but it was written before we knew all that.

The wordplay, especially with its often puerile nature, will be a turnoff for some, I am sure. It's not my favorite thing. At the same time, seeing them give up the pranks and things isn't refreshing because it feels more that they are being broken than that they are growing.

So the other thing that struck me was that there doesn't have to be a lost manuscript to explain a long gap in writing and publication. It could also be perfectly reasonable to just need time and distance to put it all far enough away.

[Clif · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the story of a group of men in combat in the early years of American involvement in Vietnam. The men are there as support for the army of South Vietnam and fly transport helicopters.

As Marines they must obey commands even if the commands are ridiculous. They must obey superior officers, even if an officer may be a fool or incompetent. They must interact with civilians and soldiers of an alien culture whose habits and language they do not understand.

The men are employed to move things from here to there, engaging in combat only if necessary. As tools for a specific job, they are not individuals but only packages of specific abilities, like flying a helicopter, needed to pursue goals they have no part in setting. All the while, they are told nothing about the larger picture of which they are a tiny part and are to keep in control while on duty and be as stoic as possible, as you would want of any good tool.

This is more than a normal person can stand and it takes the ordeal of boot camp to condition men to the point that they can function under it. But there is no way to suppress individuality entirely and that is what war stories are all about - how to reconcile being part of a killing machine with being a human being. This unsolvable psychological problem results in behaviors found in this story, that range from seeking thrills in wild behavior (as all young males do from time to time) to desperate acts tempting fate, all the while nervous at the dire situation they are in, where one moment you and your buddies are alive and in control while in the next you may be dead or horribly injured and helpless.

Add in the personal interplay that comes with people from widely varying backgrounds being thrown together for experiences of terror, drunkenness and prolonged boredom are common along with the occasional relief provided by whoring trips.

Who Shot the Water Buffalo is interesting for what it relates about the American experience in Vietnam - the alienation in the jungle from all that was once familiar, the juvenile stunts, the disobedience, the fighting and the fear. What makes it enjoyable is Babbs' light writing style, playful use of words and sense of humor. For example - the use of big words in conversation by anyone in the unit. As you'd expect in an army, there is little respect for any indication of linguistic prowess, so unusual words are spoken only at the risk of ridicule. With these men, an unusual word ("peripatetic" for example) is immediately met with SPELL THAT! Only if one can spell the word correctly can it be used again and more often than not nobody can.

Undoubtedly based on his own experience, this book has the ring of truth.

[Barb · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointed, found it somewhat disjointed. I expected something much greater especially with reference to Ken Kesey. Would not recommend to friends.

[Gary · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a Marine NCO who served back then I can honestly say this book sucked.

[E.D. Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just couldn't get into this. The plot was too choppy.

[Modisettwilson]

Doubtful that I'll finish it. It's a Viet Nam memoir, feels like Catch 22 to me, but Babbs is a compatriot of Ken Kesey. Maybe another time...

[Jon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't get into this book.

[Ron Terpening · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn't finish this. Not as good as Ken Kesey's or Robert Stone's re-creation of the 60s.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was only going to give this two stars but the final 50 pages or so convinced me to bump it up a bit. This is a war novel, set during the early years of US involvement in the Vietnam conflict and focused on a squadron of Marine helicopter pilots as they move through training and into deployment as part of the avant garde of the American "advising" role to the South Vietnamese armed forces. Babbs is of course greatly qualified to write such an account, owing both to his pedigree as a Marine pilot and as a writer and collaborator with Ken Kesey. Because of my admiration for the latter and for their work together on Last Go Round, which is a very satisfying read, I began this book with high hopes. At first those hopes were buoyed up, but after a couple hundred pages of the same narrative voice telling tall tales of man-boy hi-jinks in training and in Vietnam, it began to feel less like a novel about war and more like some kind of souped-up summer camp journal. Not until the end does the lark turn ugly and the true face of war betray itself. The scene of the Marines chipping in on behalf of local orphans was especially winning and moving, and the knowledge that something truly horrific is going to happen is foreshadowed at the beginning of each chapter by an ongoing italicized monologue. The ending was the only thing that moved this from being a mediocre fictionalized memoir to something closer to good literature, but I have to disclose that I was somewhat spoiled for this novel by my recent reading of Stuart O'Nan's The Names Of The Dead, which contained some of the most bone-chilling Vietnam scenes I have ever read.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ken Babbs' experience as a chopper pilot in the pre-US War Vietnam is valuable, not only as a memoir and snapshot of that war as it began heating up, and the general psychosis that took over the US military at the time, but as a personal reflection on the futility and stupidity inherent in military culture. Babbs' fictional doppelganger, Tom Huckleberry, takes up with an irascible partner (Cochran) who while most likely based n a number of characters Babbs actually flew with, also carries a strong resemblance to his future Merry Prankster friend Ken Kesey, and Kesey's great anti-authoritarian character, Randle P McMurphy. Cochran's prankster antics keep a steady thrum against the idiocy of their platoon's commanding officer, and any others who might fall within range.
People might get pissed about this because it's not a glory-war memoir. Well, people who write glory-war memoir books are usually all liars, and you can tell this wasn't written by one of those.

[J Pearson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found myself liking this book the deeper I got into it. Written in 1962m it was a lost manuscript and not published until 2011. It definitely shows its age in places. The first chapter really doesn't work. It was hard to get over that bump. Its tone is different from the rest of the book, more similar to a Catch-22 ripoff than anything else. (Catch-22 does cast a shadow over this book, but the tone settles down.) Also, the italicized chapter intros, that lead us towards the end/climax of the tale don't work. I didn't like the writing and the stream-of-consciousness falls flat. But, the inner chapters, life as a Marine helicopter pilot in the early advisory days of the Vietnam War are pretty good. At times, I had difficulty putting it down. Read it for the Vietnam parts if that's your thing.

[Uncle Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good read!
Ken Babbs wrote this in 2011...long after the events chronicled in this novel set in Vietnam occurred but it is written as if they just happened (time frame early 60s)...for those of us that remember, this was when we were only providing support to the armies of South Vietnam...Ken Babbs is remarkable in his ability to recall with great detail the people and the hilarious episodes of these people just trying to get through to the next day without getting killed as helicopter pilots, assisting the armies of South Vietnam...

[Shelley Fearn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written by one of the founding members of Ken Keesey’s “Merry Pranksters”, you can well imagine the tone of this novel about a group of Marine helicopter pilots in the very beginning of the Vietnam conflict. A war story whose characters pride themselves in seeing the gallows humor in war. The story of the water buffalo in the title is a case in point. Fans of Tim O'Brien might wish to consider.

[Kelly Is Brighid · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horrible! The worst-written book I’d ever read, deserves “negative” stars. Not an original character or plot, it’s amazing the author hasn’t been sued - then again, it’s so poorly hashed together... ugh, can not be bothered to waste any more words on this failure.

[Steve Hyman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book about war without a lot of the horrors, just the interactions of men who find themselves caught up.

[Nicholas Dabagia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book rocks. Maybe the best I’ve read about the occupation of Vietnam. I really like the use of first person, as well as the present tense throughout. Definitely worth a read.

[Sean Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book. A different kind of war boom that does not focus on battle at all. It has snapshots of action that keep it moving, but most of the book is about the time spent around the action. I really liked this book. A little bit slow, but a good read nonetheless.

[Diane Prokop · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read several books about the Vietnam War. All of them were serious accounts of the screwed up military conflict that left the United States humbled. I loved Philip Caputo’s A Rumor of War, Larry Heinemann’s Black Virgin Mountain, and more recently Karl Marlantes‘ Matterhorn.
Not surprisingly, Merry Prankster Ken Babbs’ new book, Who Shot the Water Buffalo?, has an entirely different take on the war. WSTWB is what you would expect from someone who was best friends with Ken Kesey and became famous for his LSD antics, the Further bus trip and Grateful Dead associations. Of course it’s irreverent, but it’s also smart, insightful and poignant. Of all the books I’ve read, none so expertly captures the absurdity of the Vietnam War as does WSTWB. And since Babbs served as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam in the early sixties, he’s writing what he knows. He wrote this novel while he served and then shelved it for 45 years. It’s been reworked and refreshed and is his debut novel.
It chronicles two Marine Corps officers who meet in helicopter flight school at the Pensacola Naval Air Station and become best buddies. Lieutenant Tom Huckelbee, a “wiry” guy from Texas, and Lieutenant Mike Cochran, a “loquacious son of an Ohio gangster,” are training to fly helicopters because “helly chopters don’ carry no Fat Man” referring to the fact that they don’t carry A-bombs or any bombs at all. They soon find themselves in the middle of a hot, humid mud-fest in South Vietnam where VC are trying to kill them, dysentery is wreaking havoc with their bowels and the mind-blowing rules and regulations of the military are trying to break their spirit. The job of the pistol-packing pilots is to fly supply sorties to outposts which turns out to be as grueling as any hand-to-hand combat duty could be. Chopper duty means endless hours of flying into pea-soup fog through jungle mountains with snipers down below turning pedestrian supply runs into harrowing undertakings at times. It also means getting shot down and having your buddies die in front of you.
Even with all the drama, there is no shortage of irreverent and funny moments shared by Huckelbee, Cochran and the rest of their squadron. That’s especially true when they escape to Tokyo where getting drunk and laid is de rigueur. It’s “R and R. Rest and relaxation. Rehabilitation and Reclamation. Romping and Ratfucking. A necessity for hot-shot pilots burning themselves out on the steady diet of “Fly and drink and to hell with the Victor Charley” attitude we ‘Mericans so easily develop in the tropics.” They also pull off some pressure-relieving “M*A*S*H-like” base pranks.
Each chapter opens with free association dream-like prose directed at “doc” that channels Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. Huckelbee chant-raps stream-of-consciousness revelations after he suffers a shoulder wound. “Some water, Doc...a nice cool drink...that’s the ticket...abolish all fever spots...empty the ice machine...raindrops falling on my head...sweet balm of rapture...fly me to the moon, Doc...I need a reprieve...Cochran is a maniac...we fly eleven hours on a massive troop lift, he never turns loose the controls...with the bit in his teeth, he’s a horse not a gorilla...we refuel at a dirt strip with big black gas bladders filling us up…choppers gulping gas, three at a time...rotors shut down but engines running...we’re full up...bird in front of us still refueling...Cochran curses, what’s the fucking holdup...engages rotors, twists on turns, pulls the collective up and lifts off.” The staccato rhythm of this free-flowing verse perfectly mimics the sounds of machine guns strafing the jungles below. It’s wonderful to read out loud.
Who Shot the Water Buffalo? is an important addition to the rest of the books that chronicle the Vietnam War and the sixties. Its influences are many ranging from the Beat Generation’s Jack Kerouac with the sex, drugs, politics and On the Road quality combined with the crazy Gonzo journalism style of Hunter S. Thompson. Who Shot the Water Buffalo? is both historical and nostalgic and is fresh and singular in its voice. Bravo Babbs!

[Peter Hoffmeister · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Vietnam War and helicopter details are great, and the characters are clear. Babbs' voice is fun too, and I admire the structure of the chapter openings - the italics sections. In the after-crash scene (and I won't be too specific so I don't ruin anything), I was completely sucked in. I read 50 pages without blinking. So that means big entertainment. And that seemed to be Babbs' main goal. To entertain. And he does that well.
But that's where I got hung up. This is not Cormac McCarthy or Toni Morrison (my favorites), and doesn't develop like All the Pretty Horses or Song of Solomon. Is that a fair comparison? No. This book doesn't try to be McCarthy or Morrison. It is a '60s novel (started in the '60s - finished forty years later). Babbs is more Kerouac or Ginsberg, his heroes perhaps. Thompson, maybe. Not Faulkner followers, not my favorites. But my favorites are not the issue. In his genre, Babbs deserves his place.
Yes, critics will say that there are too many joky moments. Call back jokes that should have been cut. But that's his editor's fault. A good editor will demand precision, will actually edit. And Babbs will try to be Babbs. There must be that balance.
One wish: That the jacket didn't mention Ken Kesey, that Babbs could be held separately. He's not Kesey, and wouldn't want to be. Writing a novel is a solitary pursuit, difficult and honorable. And each novel is its own, an entity. I admire Babbs simply because he did something beautiful. He wrote and revised a novel. He finished the game. And this novel draws the reader in, plays with the reader, tells a good story.

[NC Weil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been reading Vietnam novels lately. This one, by Merry Prankster Ken Babbs, tells the plainly-autobiographical story of his stint in Vietnam as a Marine, in 1961-63 when the US was still "advising" the Republic of Vietnam.

A novel by a veteran about war experience unavoidably draws on the soldier's own life. However, its qualities as a work of fiction are something else. War stories can be riveting: frightening, absurd, shocking, tragic. But a novel works because it has a narrative arc, a story that goes somewhere, with characters who transform along that arc.

Ken Babbs can spin a good yarn, and his character Mike Cochran, a larger-than-life tough guy who flaunts rules and gets things done in swashbuckling fashion, is fun to follow around. But the string of vignettes Babbs offers up ultimately goes nowhere.

War is hell. Yeah, we suspected as much.

[Frederic · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book(after all it's Ken Babbs!)but it's not the extraordinary melding of Marine Corps/Prankster sensibility for which I had hoped...it's not bad though...another Bull Goose Loony and his sidekick at war with Higher-Higher in VietNam during the early '60's,when the War could still be "fun"(at least for American officers,it was always "a Bummer for the Gooks")...light,Service Comedy diversion that is well-written enough to make me hope that Babbs has a bigger book within that will serve as the Main Course to this book's Appetizer...

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a collection of anecdotes with a shared cast of characters, I enjoyed it. As a novel, the format didn't quite work for me, and the end felt rather abrupt and lacked a satisfactory denouement. But as an illustration of the day-to-day life of Marine helicopter pilots in the Vietnam War, it was a very good read.

[Merciful · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lot of fun. I hated to get to the ending - I didn't want the wild ride to end. Reminiscent of M*A*S*H, No Time For Sergeants, Dispatches and Chickenhawk all at the same time, traveling with manic energy to all points in between. It's one I'm sure to re-read down the line.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book, great writer and a pretty good guy.

[Ben Rand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

It sounded real, and was a great picture of life at that time in that place.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this! I've read a lot of novels about Viet Nam and this rates up there with the best of them. Laugh-out-loud funny, gutwrenchingly sad,absurdly weird - kind of like the war itself.

[Howard · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess you had to be there.

[Zack · Rating 5 out of 5]

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