I finished reading "My Detachment" by Tracy Kidder. The author of this book won a Pulitzer prize for another of his works. I have not read anything else by Mr. Kidder, but I hope this book is not representative of his work. If this book is representative than I do not understand the Pulitzer people.
I have read many memoirs written by people who served in Vietnam. Of the dozens I have read, this one has the least to recommend itself in my opinion.
This book is described as being hilarious, sad, gripping, compelling, candid, and a whole host of other accolades. I didn't once laugh during the entire book. I didn't see the humor anywhere. In fact, the only adjective above that I think applied to this book is candid. This is the story of Kidder's one year tour in Vietnam, and the story he tells about himself does not make me admire or respect him at all. So in this way I think he was candid. The self he portrays to the readers is a superficial, lying coward, so this is pretty candid. However, having read the reviews others have given this book, I think most reviewers found these traits to be endearing. I did not. I think the acclaim this book has received has largely been from people who thought poorly of the Vietnam war and found expression of these feelings in this book. OK, so you didn't agree with the War. Certainly there are better, more thoughtful and intelligent works that are against the war than "My Detachment".
The overriding theme of this book is anti Vietnam war, and therefore, by extension anti Army. These themes progress from start to finish and are proclaimed continuously. Very early in the book a friend tells Kidder he should be against the war and he buys into this. He readily admits that he has not given the topic much thought and arrived at his position on the war because of his friend. His anti war position is very superficial in the beginning. By the end of the book he has become a true believer in the anti war cause. The problem with this is we never see this develop throughout the story. In the beginning he admits to arriving at his position in a superficial way, but never gives us any indication during the story that he has given the matter any more depth of thought. He presents only the briefest of anecdotes that might be seen as supportive of his anit war position, but these are few and insignificant. An example would be his speculating that artillery fired might be killing innocent people. He does not know that it is. He has not seen nor heard evidence that it is. He just assumes that this is probably happening. In fact, all of his anti war positions are based on assumptions that he makes.
It is important to emphasize here that nothing happened to Kidder in Vietnam. Nothing at all. He did not see any action. He did not talk to people who saw action. He was never exposed, even second hand, to the realities of war. It was not like anyone even came to him and had a conversation about all the bad things happening out there. Nothing like this happened. Any opinions he had about the war came solely out of his head. Like the assumption that artillery was killing innocent people. He gives us absolutely no concrete arguments whatsoever as to why he opposes the war. He does so on moral grounds, but never explains what these are nor gives examples. It is as if he assumes we all know why he feels the way he does, so he doesn't need to explain. But given his lack of first hand knowledge about the war, I think an explanation would have been helpful in understanding him.
The only concrete example he ever gave about any military action that involved anything tragic was when he mentioned how the Communists had shelled innocent civilians in a refugee camp. He just mentions this briefly. Him being such a highly professed critic of the war one would have thought he would have filled the book with stories like this, only being committed by the Americans. But he does not. He mentions this one incident during the book, and it was the enemy that did it. He only mentions it in passing. No recognition whatsoever.
The only thing I found interesting in the book was the very brief description he gave of his work. He was in ASA signal intelligence (Refer to My review earlier on ASA in Vietnam). His detachment's job was to use radio detection techniques to locate enemy radios, and thus unit locations. His brief talk about this was interesting, but it was very brief. However, it was in the description of the work that he made the most interesting comments of the whole book, and the most contradictory. He stated all along that he was against the war, while never giving reasons, and that the army and government were lying about what was going although he never gives any evidence of this. But then he writes the following:
"When I'd left the United States, some people in the antiwar movement were still saying this was a war waged only between a corrupt South Vietnamese regime and valiant local insurgents. But on the part of our map that covered the brigade's AO, most of what you saw were large North Vietnamese units, and just a couple of Vietcong companies. And here was the kicker..... All of those units, including the two little VC companies, communicated directly with a giant corps headquarters across the border in Cambodia....... which in turn communicated directly with Hanoi. More than geography separated me from my principled antiwar friends back home....... He should be against the war, of course, but I'd bet he didn't know why"
I was appalled when I read this. The government and Army had maintained all along that the Vietnam war was an aggression waged by the North to conquer the south. Here he is sitting on the truth of this and admitting it, but it has no impact on his feeling about the war. All he does is suggest that the reasons for being opposed to the war have nothing to do with this. But once again, he fails to tell us what those reasons to be against the war are. Even so, the statement above was the most interesting part of the book for me.
The other theme of the book was touched on in far more detail than the anti war theme. His dislike for the Army. But again, Kidder does nothing to offer any credible information for the reader to see and feel empathy for his position. He joined ROTC in an effort to avoid serious Army duty. A friend had persuaded him that since he had to do a two year obligation, if he joined ROTC he would have the ability to choose his own path in the Army and avoid anything unpleasant. OK fair enough, but when he finally finds out he is going to be sent to Vietnam he argues that his Harvard education made such service a waste of material. Very nice. He makes this argument to his commander whom he thinks is sympathetic to his anti war, personal feelings. His commander surprises him by saying that he can't alter the orders, but wouldn't do so even if he could. So Kidder went to Vietnam.
Initially Kidder believes that he is too good to be sent to Vietnam. He makes Kerryesque comments about how the war is for the uneducated and unsophisticated. However, once he is forced to go to Vietnam he starts to identify with these same people. He still makes those types of comments about who is fighting the war, but now in a total reversal of his attitude he is their champion. He also identifies with the enlisted men. He is an officer but has nothing but contempt for other officers. In his mind the only good people were the enlisted people. It was the noble savage myth. The problem is that he has contempt for anyone who is an officer for no reason whatsoever, and likes all enlisted men no matter how opprobrious they may be. Like his position on the war, we are given only middling reasons why he doesn't like officers (At least that is more than he gave us on his war position). He doesn't like regulations and inspections. Things like that. So he hates officers and Lifers. The problems is, he hates officers just because they are officers. Officers who are nothing but nice to him, and helpful. Who have done nothing even remotely untoward to him, he still despises because they are officers. His attitude make no sense at all. He has a reactionary point of view. Politically he feels he must be against the war, therefore the Army, so he is and offers no rational reasons for any of this. In fact the opposite. If you are an officer he doesn't like you no matter how nice you are to him nor how good a person. He is against the war no matter what evidence he has about the atrocities of the enemy. It just didn't add up.
He is the champion of the enlisted men, and makes a big display over how he feels he must protect "his men". But when he says protect, he means from the Army. Protect them from annoying inspections, Army procedures, and Lifers. In fact, he has little use for true protection concerns. His men are supposed to wear their helmets when they leave their area. He thinks this rule is ridiculous. The higher ups want him to have his men keep the sandbags maintained around their living and working areas to protect from mortars. He thinks this is just make work doled out by the Lifers to make the enlisted men miserable. The real shocker is even when he tells of hearing about people getting killed by mortars around the brigade, he still thinks nothing of the sandbag issue. In his mind it is simply harassment to fill sandbags. So much for protecting his men.
His men didn't respect him. He showed no leadership qualities whatsoever. In fact the whole book is a celebration of his weaknesses. Perhaps this is the part that we are supposed to find humorous, but I found it to be very sad and hard to read. He wanted to be a good leader, but in his mind his men had to like him for him to consider himself a good leader. So in an effort to "Protect" his men and make them like him he asks very little of them. No expectations whatsoever. So of course, they live up to these expectations. Everything he does is to align himself with his men against the Army, and try to make them like him. Yet by the end of the book he is still hopelessly not respected by his men and he knows it. His sergeant didn't show this desire to be liked and lack of concern for discipline, so the men listened to and respected the sergeant. But this leadership lesson was lost on Lt. Kidder. He showed no strength of character whatsoever. No wonder why when he was on R&R in Singapore a prostitute rejected him and the madam thought he was gay
In a letter from his girlfriend back in the states she responded to his weaknesses by admonishing him that it was OK for him to be against the war but he shouldn't act like a child in the process.
So he lied in his letters to family and friends. He never remotely got anywhere close to any danger, but in his letters he constantly suggested he was in danger in the thick of the war, and that he was a good and respected leader. He lied to his parents, his fiancé, his friends, and himself. His lying was almost pathological. But I guess this makes him candid. He is a writer so he wrote stories about the war while he was there that he hoped to use for a novel later. He wrote stories about soldiers in the field. People for whom he had no examples whatsoever. He wrote stories of soldiers in combat. Stories of racial problems among soldiers. Stories of drug problems. Stories of Soldiers raping Vietnamese girls. All the kinds of themes you would see in an Oliver Stone film. But similar to Oliver Stone (Who at least did see combat), he had no personal knowledge of any such activities nor any hearsay knowledge of such things from other people. He admits this, yet he wrote these things anyway. He just invented them like any good story teller.
I don't understand what the point of this book was, nor why it was showered with such praise? Kidder painted a truly pathetic picture of himself in this book. I don't know why other people found this book to be endearing and humorous. I found it very hard to read. Almost embarrassing to read.
