Friendly Fire
New York: Bantam Books, 1976. Second printing [stated]. Mass market paperback. x, 437, [1] pages. Small tear to front cover. Cover is worn and soiled. Some page discoloration. Includes Author's Note. Illustration. To read this book is to weep, to despair, and ultimately to cheer. The true story of Michael Mullen, a soldier killed in Vietnam, and his parents’ quest for the truth from the US government: “Brilliantly done” (The Boston Globe). Drafted into the US Army, Michael Mullen left his family’s Iowa farm in September 1969 to fight for his country in Vietnam. Six months later, he returned home in a casket. Michael wasn’t killed by the North Vietnamese, but by artillery fire from friendly forces. With the government failing to provide the precise circumstances of his death, Mullen’s devastated parents, Peg and Gene, demanded to know the truth. A year later, Peg Mullen was under FBI surveillance. In a riveting narrative that moves from the American heartland to the jungles of Vietnam to the Vietnam Veterans Against the War march in Washington, DC, to an interview with Mullen’s battalion commander, Lt. Col. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, author C. D. B. Bryan brings to life with brilliant clarity a military mission gone horrifically wrong, a patriotic family’s explosive confrontation with their government, and the tragedy of a nation at war with itself. Originally intended to be an interview for the New Yorker, the story Bryan uncovered proved to be bigger than he expected, and it was serialized in three consecutive issues during February and March 1976, and was eventually published as a book that May. In 1979, Friendly Fire was made into an Emmy Award–winning TV movie. Courtlandt Dixon Barnes Bryan (April 22, 1936 – December 15, 2009), better known as C. D. B. Bryan, was an American author and journalist. He earned a Bachelor of Arts at Yale University in 1958, where he wrote for campus humor magazine The Yale Record. He served in the U.S. Army in South Korea (1958–1960). He was mobilized again (1961–1962) for the Berlin Crisis of 1961 He was an intelligence officer. Bryan sold his first short story to The New Yorker in 1961. He was editor of the satirical Monocle (from 1961 until 1965), Colorado State University writer-in-residence (winter 1967), visiting lecturer University of Iowa writers workshop (1967–1969), special editorial consultant at Yale (1970), visiting professor University of Wyoming (1975), adjunct professor Columbia University (1976), fiction director at the New York City Writers Community from (1977), lecturer in English University of Virginia (spring 1983), and Bard Center fellow Bard College (spring 1984). His first novel, P. S. Wilkinson, won the Harper Prize in 1965. Bryan is best known for his nonfiction book Friendly Fire (1976). It began as an idea he sold to William Shawn for an article in The New Yorker, then grew into a series of articles, and then a book. It describes an Iowa farm family, Gene and Peg Mullen, and their reaction and change of heart after their son's accidental death by friendly fire in the Vietnam War. One of the real-life characters featured in the book was future Operation Desert Storm commander H. Norman Schwarzkopf. It was made into an Emmy-winning 1979 television movie of the same name, for which he shared a Peabody Award.It's also been cited in professional military studies. Condition: Good.
Keywords: Friendly Fire, Vietnam War, Casualties, United States Army, Public Relations, Peg Mullen, Gene Mullen, Michael Mullen, Norman Schwarzkopf, Cover-up, Gold Star Families
ISBN: 0553108581
[Book #82151]
Price: $22.50