Brothers in Arms

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

``I went back to find a man I never knewmy 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 pathetic 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. First serial to Esquire. (May 30)

Library Journal

Journalist Broyles recounts his 1984 return visit to Vietnam, where he had been a young Marine lieutenant some 15 years before. In the course of this fascinating journey, he discusses strategy with the generals who engineered the Communist victory, visits prisons where Americans were captive, and learns the value of the postwar phrase ``I am not a Russian.'' Many observations are unfavorable, including those on the persistent black market, political dogmatism, and the rigidity of a highly structured socialist society. Yet the strength of the Vietnamese people is revealed also: the frugality of the impoverished where nothing is discarded, and the use of the word ``sacrifice'' only to mean death (no other hardship is worthy of the term). Finally, Broyles achieves a fulfilling sense of comradeship with his former enemies. An engrossing account, very highly recommended. Richard W. Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno