Devon Michael > Recent Status Updates

One thing I’ve learned after reading many memoirs of combat vets is that they’re just as good at telling stories as they are at being fighting men. Mr. Jennings is no different, and neither are the men he flew with. Absolutely captivating stories.

As the battle for Hamburger Hill rages on, it can be a bit hard to follow all the moving pieces: 3/187th here, 1/506th there, and NVA everywhere. Jennings tries to break it down, as digestible as possible but I think the important thing to take from it all is that it was an absolute bloodbath.

So far, Mr Jennings’s writing has been rather casual. It feels as if I’m sitting at a bar and hearing his story over a beer. The informality has been a breath of fresh air after reading the fatalistic writing of Sledge and the patriotism of Ambrose. After a brief history lesson of rank, helicopters, and the geopolitics of the Indochina peninsula we are now nearing the authors arrival to Vietnam.

McGovern and his crew embody a colossus of training and prestige. Together, with the other members of the AAF, they are embarking on a turbulent mission of Liberation. Thus far the book feels like a love story, in a literal and proverbial sense. McGovern speaks so fondly of his wife, Eleanor, and well as his crew and the beast they’ve tamed to take to war, the mighty B-24.

The dichotomy of Sledge’s hatred and disdain for war and his simultaneous overwhelming esprit de corps is a fascinating compound. His stark nonchalance while describing the horrors he and his companions face in their day to day bombardment is occasionally broken up by beautiful eloquence that makes the pages dissolve before me.