Book: Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes

This is novel about the Vietnam War, specifically about Bravo Company and the soldiers who lived and died while fighting the North Vietnamese Army west of Cam Lo. While Matterhorn is a fictional hill rising from the jungle, much of this novel is based on the author's Vietnam experiences.

I found it compelling, informative, full of tragedy, some comedy, every page dense with the grittiness and reality of war in the jungle. But there are grace notes in unexpected places throughout the book that make it more than just a war story. The time is 1969; racial tensions are very much a part of the civilian and military psyches. The disconnect between the majors and colonels and the men they command, the men who do the actual fighting and killing, the men who live in terror and with the knowledge that they may very well not survive the next 24 hours...this disconnect is also a part of the story.

A paragraph chosen randomly:
"Mellas looked at the tableau of friends around him. Some of them would very likely be dead in an hour. Fracasso, who was barely old enough to drink, really showed his fear. He was writing everything he could in his notebook bouncing up and down in a crouch, his teeth bared in a tense grin. Goodwin, the hunter was nervous, like a runner before a race, possessing some primitive ability to lead men into situations where death was the understood payoff. Kendall, worried sick, his face pallid, his helmet already on his head, was leading a platoon that didn't trust him. Finch, at age twenty-three, had already worn responsibility that most men only debated about. He was now taking 190 kids into battle, and his decisions would determine how many came back. The kids, dreaming of R & R, remembering the R & R from which they'd just returned, some savoring a memory of smooth brown skin pressed against their own, a few remembering wives left behind at antiseptic airports. And Mellas: In less than an hour there could be no Mellas."

For those of us who support wars and for those of us who don't, this book tells us what exactly war is, who the servicemen are, and how and why as young men they find themselves in a jungle (or desert) fighting for our country.