Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam Author: Visit Amazon's Nick Turse Page | Language: English | ISBN:
1250045061 | Format: EPUB
Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam Description
From Booklist
The shocking images of the mounds of corpses, including women, children, and even babies, murdered by American troops in the Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai symbolized for many the horror of that war. At the time, military officials insisted that the massacre was an aberration and stressed that American troops in the field behaved with discipline and restraint, and strived to avoid civilian casualties. Not so, according to Turse, an investigative journalist who has been researching and writing about American “war crimes” in Vietnam for a decade. If his goal was to illustrate that atrocities committed against civilians were more widespread than previously acknowledged, Turse succeeds. He has mined Pentagon archives and conducted interviews with American veterans to credibly support his assertion. Unfortunately, Turse has a broader agenda, which is to show that the murder of civilians was systematic and encouraged by U.S. policy. He implies that our soldiers were on an out-of-control rampage on a regular basis.The nation could use a balanced view of the conduct of our combat troops in Vietnam, but this misses the mark. --Jay Freeman
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Bookforum
After reading Turse's meticulous, extraordinary, and oddly moving account, it's hard to avoid concluding that the US record in Vietnam has more in common with the Wehrmacht and the Imperial Japanese Army than "the greatest generation" that fought those enemies in World War II. —Jeff Stein
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
See all Editorial Reviews
- Series: American Empire Project
- Paperback: 416 pages
- Publisher: Picador; Reprint edition (December 31, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1250045061
- ISBN-13: 978-1250045065
- Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Enough has been said, here and elsewhere, about the content of KATM and the meticulous archival and field research on which it is based. It is a brilliant (a word I use sparingly) work about one of the most tragic periods of Vietnamese and American history. It is also without a doubt the most painful book I have ever read. This might have to do with the fact that the subject matter is intensely personal for me. I still have vivid recollections of many of the scenes Nick Turse describes in excruciating detail. I am haunted by them.
Many of the comments in the 1 and 2 star category are eminently predictable and also reflect the views of some veteran Vietnam observers and scholars who should know better. The categories into which they fall are presented here in A-Z order.
Atrocities Committed By The "Other Side"
They did it, too! Whenever I hear this sophomoric comment, the first thought that comes to mind is that the Americans and their allies, including the Australians, South Koreans and others, had no right to be there in the first place. This is not an issue of moral equivalence. The "other side" was fighting against yet another foreign invader and its collaborators in the name of national liberation. It's that simple.
Fallacy of Generalizing from Personal Experience
If I had a nickel for every time I've read "I didn't witness any atrocities during my tour"... So because you didn't witness it first-hand means it didn't happen, right? Turse does not claim that every US combat soldier was a war criminal who was out raping, torturing and killing civilians. I know many veterans who, if they didn't know before they went, quickly realized after they arrived that the war was a colossal mistake.
A comment about the review by MAA. I agree with most of his comments. I think however he
Fails to give due and measured credibility to observations of veterans like myself and those like myself who did not see the kind of horrific abuse Turse reported is not valid and a disservice to soldiers like myself. No doubt the body count was BS, but I still maintain the rape, baby and women killings etc. is quite overstated. See my comments below.
There is some evidence for his proposition. He greatly overstates the incidence of rape and deliberate murder of civilians however. He makes it sound as if this was a routine/daily occurrence. In my year there in combat, I did not see one incident such as this.
I've been doing a lot of thinking about my experience in Vietnam as a result of reading this book. It has some elements of truth to it, especially concerning the inflated body counts and influence from the chain of command for bodies. However, from my experience he has looked for (and found) many individual instances of abuse of civilians in that war and made it seem that was much more of a regular occurrence than it was.
He doesn't point out the danger we were in from women and children who would set booby traps or shoot at us. It was a nightmare scenario and I'm sure many soldiers lost their lives because they were not cautious enough with women and children.
To some degree, I think he takes the worst instances of a 12 year war and expounds on them making it sound like all units did this every day. In my experience that was not the case. I was a forward observer with a maneuver company in Vietnam in 1967. I patrolled the length of the An Lao Valley many times. His descriptions of what happened there have some merit.
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