Book Review: Body Count

Book Review: 'Body Count' by William Turner Huggett

4 / 5 Stars

'Body Count' was first published in hardback in 1973 by G. P. Puttnam; this Dell paperback version (445 pp) was issued in October 1983.

'Body Count' was the only novel published by William Turner Huggett (1939 - 2004). Huggett served in the Vietnam War as a Marine, and was awarded the Bronze Star. After leaving the Marines he became a well-regarded maritime lawyer in South Florida. Huggett died at age 65 of a brain hemorrhage, on the eve of a major trial involving a boiler explosion on the cruise ship SS Norway in 2003 that killed four crewmembers.

'Body Count' is set in 1969. As the novel opens Lieutenant Chris Hawkins takes command of Delta Company, Second Battalion, Seventh Regiment, Third Marine Division. Hawkins, who gave up his PhD program in order to volunteer for duty in Vietnam, is 'green' and thus something of a hazard to himself and his men. He is forced to quickly learn that much of his training in the US has not prepared him for the way the war is waged in-country.

The rest of the company is a cross section of American society: Hispanic and black men from the inner city, white men from small towns and rural areas, and an American Indian who (inevitably) is called Chief. Some of these men are cowards, some of them are brave, and all of them are counting off the days until they can leave Vietnam.

As the novel unfolds, Delta Company will learn whether Lieutenant Hawkins can become a capable officer and leader. But the learning curve is steep; forays against the NVA will leave little time for the Lieutenant to learn how to keep himself, and his men, alive.........

At 445 pages, 'Body Count' is a lengthy book, but for the most part it's very readable, more so than novels of equivalent length, such as Sand in the Wind and The 13th Valley. The author uses short chapters to continuously move the narrative from one member of the Company to another. The scenes of combat action, while highly convincing, are comparatively rare, with much of the novel devoted to covering the peculiar nature of duty away from the front lines. 

While not being polemical, author Huggett lays clear the conflicts between the 'rear echelon motherfuckers' (REMF) who were (are indeed still are, as the 'fobbits' plaguing our bases in the Middle East) the bane of the combat soldier. He also makes plain the drawbacks imposed on the American effort by the tendency of the brass to see the war as something to be Managed from the comfort of their air-conditioned offices, or while circling overhead in helicopters.

The books suffers from a few too many segments in which Huggett explores the ramifications of the Peace Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, and the racial conflicts in the States for the men serving in Vietnam. I found these segments to be overly labored, and likely reflecting a decision by the author to give his novel a more expansive point of view than that expected of a simple combat narrative.

The closing chapter, which takes place in the A-Shau Valley, delivers authentic battle action and will reward those readers who are willing to stay with 'Body Count' through its slower passages.

Summing up, 'Body Count' is a sold four-star Vietnam War novel. Copies of the hardbound edition and the paperback edition can be had for affordable prices, and are worth picking up.

'I'm Easy' by Keith Carradine

'I'm Easy'
by Keith Carradine
July 1976

'I'm Easy' was first performed by Keith Carradine (the brother of Kung Fu actor David Carradine) as a acoustic guitar song in the 1975 movie Nashville.

In 1976, Carradine re-recorded 'I'm Easy' with greater musical accompaniment and released it in May as the lead single from his forthcoming album of the same title. The single peaked at number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on July 31, 1976.

Book Review: The Vietnam War

Book Review: 'The Vietnam War' edited by Ray Bonds

5 / 5 Stars

'The Vietnam War' first was published by Salamander Books in the UK in 1979; in the U.S., this version (248 pp) was published by Crown, also in 1979.

In 1988 an updated edition (264 pp) was released by Crown under the 'Military Press' imprint.

A revised, third edition was published in 1997 under the Salamander Books imprint.

I still remember going into Oakdale Mall Waldenbooks on a cool evening in May 1979 (in my hometown in upstate New York, May was a 'sketchy' month, weather-wise: you could get light snow at the beginning of the month, and at its end, sweltering temps) and seeing this book on a table in the back part of the store. 

I was astounded. Up till this time, books on the Vietnam War had been limited to novels and biographies, like A Rumor of War and Born on the Forth of July.  

Leave it to the Brits to do what they do so well: these heavily illustrated, tiny-font, multi-author military histories, exemplified by the Purnell's History of the Second World War, a series of 128 magazines first issued in 1966.

[ Indeed, it would be another two years before the U.S. publishing industry caught up, in the form of Setting the Stage, the first volume in Time Life Books' 25-volume juggernaut, The Vietnam Experience. ]

Needless to say, I grabbed a copy of The Vietnam War and avidly read it. At the time it was the best single-volume military history of the war.

And, I would argue, it retains that status even today.

For one thing, it features a full-color section, titled 'Weapons and warfare techniques used in Vietnam', that excels in presenting those aspects of the war. The diagrams and illustrations are top-notch.

Being mindful that the contents of first edition of The Vietnam War were written 40 years ago, all in all, they remain reasonably valid as historical accounts. Not surprisingly, for a multi-author compilation they vary a bit in quality. However, reflecting the fact that most of the contributors are professional historians, for the most part they avoid overindulgence in editorial judgments and political rhetoric, and stay focused on narratives at the strategic and tactical levels.

One understandable gap in the book's coverage is the experience of the war on the part of the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese forces; there is a chapter titled 'The development of the Communist armies', by Lt. Col. David Miller, that is informative on the topic despite the paucity of sources available from the Communist side back in the late 70s.

It is unfair to compare The Vietnam War with Max Hastings' recent (2018) book Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945 - 1975, for at 896 pp in length Hastings' book has the advantage of length and access to the bounty of sourcing that has accumulated since 1979. 

But Hastings' book has its own flaws alongside its merits, and for those unwilling to tackle such a hefty volume, The Vietnam War remains a very affordable alternative. I certainly believe that The Vietnam War is as good as, if not better than, the other one-volume histories of the war that were published in the early 80s, such as Stanley Karnow's Vietnam: A History (1983) and Michael MacLear's The Ten Thousand Day War (1981).

Summing, despite its age, The Vietnam War still serves as a very accessible history of the military aspects of the conflict. The fact that copies in good condition still can be had for very reasonable prices makes it worth picking up should you see it on the shelf of your favorite used bookstore.

The Tower King episodes 7 - 9

The Tower King
episodes 7 - 9
Alan Hebden (writer)
Jose Ortiz (artist)
Eagle (UK) 1982

episodes 1 - 3 are here.
episodes 4 - 6 are here.

Ill Bred by Charles Burns

'Ill Bred'
by Charles Burns
from Death Rattle Vol. 2 No. 1
October 1985

Charles Burns was already making a name for himself in the early 80s as the creator of the strip 'El Borbah' in Heavy Metal magazine. This memorable little tale appeared in 1985 in the comic book 'Death Rattle', which was an anthology of horror / sci-fi stories.

In the Land of Retinal Delights

'In the Land of Retinal Delights'
by Robert Williams
oil on canvas, 1968

Book Review: Sand in the Wind

Book Review: 'Sand in the Wind' by Robert Roth

3 / 5 Stars

‘Sand in the Wind’ first was published in hardcover in October 1973, making it one of the first novels about the American experience of the war to emerge in the 70s. This Pinnacle Books paperback version was released in August 1985; the artist responsible for the outstanding cover artwork is uncredited.

‘Sand’ was author Roth’s first novel; he served with the 5th Marines in Vietnam, and the book is based, to some extent, on his experience of the conflict.

At over 600 pages, ‘Sand’ is by no means a quick read, and trying to synopsize it is difficult as best. It’s set time-wise in 1967 and early 1968 (the Tet offensive and the battle of Khe Sanh are referenced in the closing chapters). Location-wise, ‘Sand’ is set in the I Corps region, and the Marine combat base in An Hoa. Also featuring prominently in the novel is the so-called ‘Arizona territory’ of I Corps, where the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army operated with varying degrees of impunity.

Without disclosing any spoilers, the novel centers on the adventures of two men serving with the Marines out of An Hoa: Lance Corporal and college graduate Mark Chalice, and Lieutenant David Kramer. There is of course a large cast of supporting characters, including the enlisted men, who  simultaneously hate and revere the ‘Crotch’, or Marine Corps.

Much of the narrative deals with the day-to-day struggles of the Marines to survive a war that bestows death and mutilation with a disturbingly arbitrary absence of logic. The book’s centerpiece is an extended operation by the Marines in the Arizona Territory, where the unit’s incompetent officers are as much a threat to one’s welfare as the VC and NVA. This section of the book is the best at communicating the gritty nature of the Marine war in the jungles of the northern regions of South Viet Nam: the reader gets a sense of what it means to exhaustedly tramp through jungle and rice paddies in 90 degree heat and suffocating humidity, too fatigued to be sufficiently watchful for the ubiquitous booby traps lacing the terrain, nor the VC snipers waiting and watching from impenetrable cover.

This part of the book is an understated but effective criticism of the tactics employed by US forces at this stage of the war, and articulates the causes of the growing resentment between the ‘lifers’ issuing the orders, and the conscripts carrying them out (resentments that would come to poison the American military in Vietnam before the end of the decade).

What keeps ‘Sand’ from becoming a great novel is the author’s insistence on regularly inserting passages intended to deal with the moral and psychological issues of the war. These are awkwardly written and burden, rather than enhance, the narrative:

Luck, something he had always thought about in terms of curses, now seemed to be promising what he could never have really hoped for – too much to be doubted. It all seemed no more than a matter of time, while time rushed him towards it. The impossibility of what was happening prevented him from doubting its culmination in that final impossibility.

Upon finishing the novel I observed that more than a few of its scenes, such as those involving boot camp at Paris Island, are portrayed in the 1987 Stanley Kubrick Film Full Metal Jacket, which in turn is based on ‘The Short -Timers’, a 1979 novel written by Gustave Hasford. This has raised questions as to what extent Hasford’s novel ‘borrowed’ content from Roth’s novel. Roth has not publicly commented on the issue, and Hasford – since deceased – obviously is in no position to comment for himself.

Summing up, while it has its weaknesses, ‘Sand in the Wind’ remains one of the more readable novels of the Vietnam War. If you are a fan of the literature of that conflict, then this novel is one that you will want to have on your bookshelf.

Judge Dredd in Beggar's Banquet

Judge Dredd in 'Beggar's Banquet'
Writers: John Wagner and Alan Grant
Art: John Higgins
2000 AD Prog 456 (February 8, 1986)

This was the very first Judge Dredd assignment for UK artist John Higgins, and he gave it his 'all', as they say. 

His intricate penmanship is remarkable, but also something of a liability; as Higgins relates in his autobiography Beyond Watchmen and Judge Dredd: The Art of John Higgins, taking so much care with the artwork meant that his output was limited, and, consequently, the income he earned as a comic book artist............!

Wagner and Grant's script has the perfect mix of cynicism and black humor.......things sorely lacking in any U.S. comic of the same decade.