Brothers in Arms; A Journey From War to Peace
David Lindroth (Map) New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. xi, [1], 284, [6] pages. Endpaper maps. Occasional Footnotes. Essay on sources. Previous owner's embossed stamp on half-title page. Recounts the author's return, fifteen years after he had served in combat as a Marine lieutenant, to the battlefields of Vietnam and his discovery of an unusual kinship with the people who had formerly been "the enemy." William Dodson Broyles Jr.[(born October 8, 1944) is an American screenwriter, who has worked on the television series China Beach, and the films Apollo 13, Cast Away, Entrapment, Planet of the Apes, Unfaithful, The Polar Express, and Jarhead. He also assisted in the screenplay of Saving Private Ryan. In 1968, Broyles's career was put on hold when he enlisted into the United States Marine Corps. Between 1969 and 1971, he rose to the rank of First Lieutenant and served in Vietnam, first as an infantry platoon commander, and later as an aide-de-camp to the Assistant Division Commander, 1st Marine Division. His assigned duties included social issues with an emphasis on the refugees in the Quang Nam Province. Broyles received the Bronze Star and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Silver Star. Broyles's experiences in Vietnam inspired two of his most critically acclaimed projects. In 1984, he was one of the first veterans to return to Vietnam, and his book Brothers in Arms: A Journey from War to Peace, recounts his visit and his impressions of the aftermath of war on himself and his fellow Marines. In 1988, Broyles co-created the award-winning television series, China Beach, a weekly drama about the doctors and nurses stationed at Danang. Derived from a Publishers Weekly article: ""I went back to find a man I never knew, my enemy. I went back to find pieces of myself I had left there, and to try to put the war behind me.'' Broyles, former Newsweek editor, spent four weeks in Vietnam in 1984 visiting sites familiar from his days as a combat Marine, talking with people and asking probing and provocative questions. He interviewed mountain tribesmen, fishermen, Amerasian children, Communist Party officials, academics, and former members of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army. In his own reminiscences from the war, Broyles conveys the moral ambiguities in a fresh and moving way, and in his narrative of the 1984 visit he conveys the state of postwar Vietnam. Although he felt `a certain satisfying irony at my old enemy being hoist with its own petard,' he left Vietnam `with a sympathy for my old enemies I had not had before.' Few books capture the essence of the Vietnam War and its aftermath so vividly as this one. Highly recommended. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Vietnam War, MIA, Missing in Action, Nam Dinh, Demilitarized Zone, Tan Trao, Saigon, My Lai, Viet Cong, Survivor, Marine Corps
ISBN: 0394549112
[Book #84832]
Price: $55.00