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摘要
摘要
Drafted in the spring of 1968 from a job as a sportswriter for a small, New England daily, six months later Norm Russell found himself serving in the infantry in Vietnam in an outfit nicknamed Suicide Charlie and fighting for his life against some of the North Vietnamese Army's top units. In a remarkable journey that takes the reader from a time of innocence and protest back in the States to the battle of Mole City where, in the author's words, he makes his acquaintance with the Devil, and then beyond into the despair and depravity of combat, the reader experiences the Vietnam War in gripping and graphic detail, as well as the humor and comradery that helped make it all bearable.
For Russell, an unlikely soldier caught up in a war in which he did not believe, an outsider who grew up in a single parent home because his father committed suicide not long after returning from infantry duty in Europe during World War II, surviving the war meant learning to accept his own mortality, preparing to die, and then going on . . . Suicide Charlie is the true story of the evolution of a naive 19-year-old into a combat-scarred, Universal Soldier whose search for meaning speaks to questions asked by nearly all concerned citizens of the planet in the late 20th century.
评论 (4)
出版社周刊评论
Drafted in 1968 and sent to Vietnam when he was 19 years old, Russell served as a mortarman with the so-called Suicide Charlie company of the 25th U.S. Army Division. He recounts how the demands of war hardened him, turned him into a good soldier and left him haunted by certain experiences--most notably, the hideous death of a Vietnamese boy. ``The further I got into the war,'' he writes, ``the less sense it made.'' He began to rebel against routine orders, one of which was to shoot at Vietnamese children hanging around the camp's trash dump. After his return to the States in 1969, Russell faced another kind of battle--against postcombat depression and delayed stress. His memoir is marred by occasional moments of misplaced self-admiration (``The true miracle is that we comported ourselves so well--even nobly--under difficult circumstances''). Russell wrote and produced Fathers and Sons: Two Generations of American Combat Veterans for PBS-TV. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus评论
An ex-grunt's probing, painful account of coming of age in the hellfire of Vietnam. When he was drafted in 1968, Russell was more boy than man, and a fatherless boy to boot--his dad had killed himself years before. How the author amended the ``incompleteness of being that comes from growing up in a fatherless home'' is, though rarely stated, the theme of this brutal yet considered account, which spans his weeks in basic training through his year in Vietnam and his return home. The heart of Russell's story lies in his experiences with ``Suicide Charlie,'' a front-line unit that gained its nickname from its steady decimation by enemy fire. Russell writes of his trials in two ways: straight reportage that stares down suffering with cool, precise prose (``Cooked bodies do strange things. Rip open, split at the seams, detach at the joints'') and, interspersed throughout, more impressionistic, italicized passages that sometimes veer into purple (``Overhead, the surface of Mole City [an outpost of trenches dug deep in-country] is alive with devils. Flashes of light dance along...creating ghostly images that flail as if in the throes of death, or labor''). The narrative climaxes twice: on the terrible night that Mole City is overrun by NVA forces, and on the day that Russell locks eyes with a Vietnamese boy--Vietcong?--and sees their common humanity. From these tests of will and compassion, the author learns to respect his NVA enemies (``the toughest little soldiers that God ever created'') and to realize that his real job isn't to win the war but to survive. Yet when offered a transfer, Russell sticks with Suicide Charlie, recognizing that loyalty is one value that makes life worth living. And so he grows to be a man and, later, to be a father to his own son, Shannon. Among the more memorable of Vietnam reminiscences, at times as piercing as a splinter in the soul.
《书目》(Booklist)书评
Twenty years after its end, the Vietnam War still dominates the consciousness not only of those who served, but also of those who were left behind; and all who lived through that period remain reflective about it. Russell, an infantry veteran during 1968-69, reminisces about all the standard things we've read about and seen in many films. However, his fervor for the subject and his abiding interest in the question why helps this autobiography become a vivid testament to the spirit of soldiers in Vietnam. Russell is a liberal, but he's not doctrinaire. He doesn't pass much judgment on the politics of the war (a couple of references to LBJ's and then Nixon's Vietnam policies are about the extent of his political commentary). What he is, however, is a soldier, and the book is not for the faint-of-heart or the prudish (it is about war, after all). Russell peppers his text with historical and literary references that seem forced, but there's no doubting his sincere feelings, especially in a sequence where he tells of how he was given the chance to transfer out of the hellhole that was his infantry life. His decision to decline seems rather surprising until he explains his reasoning--if he was not in that spot, some other poor slob would have had to have taken his place! ~--Joe Collins
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
The author writes of his experience as the typical 19-year-old draftee infantryman dispatched in late 1968 to the 25th Division on the Cambodian border. In a low-key manner, he proceeds through the draft, basic training, arrival in country, the travails of a grunt, the warrior bond, R & R, and return home. He articulates the common Vietnam combat experiences as well as anyone: the drudgery, horror, absurdities, futility, and captivation of war; the bond of camaraderie that lured him back from the rear to the field; and the trauma that scarred his postwar life. Russell's memoir is the saga of a crash maturation in which time in country became each soldier's most valuable possession and key element of self-definition. Now a self-employed writer who has survived serious readjustment problems, Russell possesses a philosophic maturity made resonant by his 25-year vantage point. One of the best of the hundreds of first-person accounts. Military Book Club main selection.-- Joe P. Dunn, Converse Coll., Spartanburg, S.C. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
目录
Getting Acquainted Code of Silence Lost in the South Marching in Rhythm Riddles Mole City |
The Battle of Mole City Routine Shit and Santa Claus Team Sports |
The Sweep Enemies New Mexico |
The Battle of Frontier City Dear John Letters |
The Summer of '69 Apparitions Songs Time Life on the Border Lessons of Peace |