Karl Marlantes

Fire Support Base Matterhorn: a fortress carved out of the grey-green mountain jungle. Cold monsoon clouds wreath its mile-high summit, concealing a battery of 105-mm howitzers surrounded by deep bunkers, carefully constructed fields of fire and the 180 marines of Bravo Company. Just three kilometres from Laos and two from North Vietnam, there is no more isolated outpost of America's increasingly desperate war in Vietnam. Second Lieutenant Waino Mellas, 21 years old and just a few days into his 13-month tour, has barely arrived at Matterhorn before Bravo Company is ordered to abandon their mountain and sent deep in-country in pursuit of a North Vietnamese Army unit of unknown size. Beyond the relative safety of the perimeter wire, Mellas will face disease, starvation, leeches, tigers and an almost invisible enemy. Beneath the endless jungle canopy, Bravo Company will confront competing ambitions, duplicitous officers and simmering racial tensions. Behind them, always, Matterhorn. The impregnable mountain fortress they built and then abandoned, without a shot, to the North Vietnamese Army...

Matterhorn

Thirty years in the making, this towering, critically-acclaimed and huge international bestseller is now available in paperback.

A Novel of the Vietnam War

Leonie

The voices were chanting the names of the dead. If it’s good enough for Jacobs, then it’s good enough for me. If it’s good enough for Jacobs, then it’s good enough for me. If it’s good enough for Jacobs, then it’s good enough for me. Good enough for me. Good enough for me. The voices chanted on. With each new name the rhythm would be altered to fit the syllables.

Go on, break my heart even more, why don't you. 

He started to fix coffee, knowing he’d need the caffeine to stay awake through the night, and it would soon be too dark for him to heat anything safely. Hawke’s old pear-can cup felt familiar and good. Mellas had found comfort in it several times already that day as he carefully and mindfully brewed coffee, remembering Hawke. When he finished making the coffee he took a careful first sip; the edge of the cup was heated to a satisfying lip-burning temperature.

“He still volunteered us, the poor fucking bastard. He’ll carry that a lot longer than a bad fitness report. And here I’ve been feeling bad because I enjoy killing people.” 

Hawke laughed quietly. “At least you’re over the hump on that one. It’s the people who don’t know it who are dangerous. There’s at least two hundred million of them back in the world. 

Boot camp doesn’t make us killers. It’s just a fucking finishing school.

“I won’t fuck off.” Hawke leaned back into the table. “You’ll both be afraid to go back to the world and tell all those assholes that you were good fucking Marines. Oh, you weren’t Marine legends. You weren’t even the best. But you were good. And you’ll try to tell everyone how bad you were and how sorry you are so you won’t have to explain how it really is. 

How good it can feel to do something so bad.

“Quit mourning over your fucking lost company,”he said. “You’re wasting my goddamned time.”

“Then let’s get this mystery tour on the road in my company jeep,”Hawke said. “Who’s sober enough to drive to the O-club?”

Mellas looked around. “I guess I’m about it,”he said. 

“You sit in the back and catch up with us. I’ll fucking drive.”

“Scar and Patch,” Hawke said. “I don’t have a company. I’ve got a fucking animal act.”

Mellas was incredibly happy that Fitch had made it out alive.

Mellas finished his coffee in silence. He could see his reflection in the polished wood paneling. It was obscure, a little distorted, but it was him, as he was now, alone. 

Mellas was afraid to go back to the bush. 

“There’s too many kids coming on board,” she finally said. “They’re lonesome. They’re in pain. They’re scared of dying.” She paused. “We can only patch the bodies. For all the other”— she searched for a word—“ stuff, well, we try to keep our distance. It isn’t easy.”

“You’ve got to understand what we do here,” she said. She started to reach her hand toward him on the table, but checked it and put both hands on her coffee cup instead. “We fix weapons.” She shrugged. “Right now you’re a broken guidance system for forty rifles, three machine guns, a bunch of mortars, several artillery batteries, three calibers of naval guns, and four kinds of attack aircraft. Our job is to get you fixed and back in action as fast as we can.”

“I know. I just don’t feel very much like a weapon right now.”

“How often do you think I feel like a mechanic?”

“They know they can’t have s-e-x because enlisted men don’t fuck officers,” Mellas said. “Maybe all they want is someone to be a woman around them instead of fake men with fake-men talk. They just want a real woman to smile at them and talk to them as though they were real people instead of animals.”

“You won’t see normally for a week or so. Keep a patch on it for a while, but you’ll be able to return to your unit in about a week.” He turned and began washing his hands. Mellas felt as if he’d just been notified of his own hanging. He was wheeled back and he slept.

Mellas understood that in destroying the fabric that linked those people, he had participated in evil, but this evil had hurt him as well. He also understood that his participation in evil, was a result of being human. Being human was the best he could do. Without man there would be no evil. But there was also no good, nothing moral built over the world of fact. Humans were responsible for it all. He laughed at the cosmic joke, but he felt heartsick.

“Chatterbox, this is Big John Bravo. We got you Loco Cocoa. How you? Over.” Small smiled at hearing Loco Cocoa for loud and clear. That was new to him. Lemon and Coke last week. Lickety Clit two weeks before.

Mellas didn’t pray, but his mind once again soared above the landing zone, seeing all of I Corps below him, and went looking for something better than God—a good chopper pilot.

He sank to the ground, giving in to the blackness; the sounds of the firing and confusion whirled away from him. Dying was a huge relief. For the first time, he felt safe.

Mellas Motherhenning his platoon - the fucking growth in this character is insane. 

He silently inspected his platoon. Many of the kids were strangers to him, but others were familiar friends. He’d pull on someone’s loose canteen, tug a hand grenade that was carelessly placed, going through the routine of inspection as a mother tidies her children before they leave for school.

Hawke's coffee traditions were somewhat comforting. 

Then the explosions shifted to another part of the hill. Hawke calmly took out his tin-can cup and a small chunk of C-4 and started making coffee. He looked up at Mellas, who was watching him intently. “It’s the ever-flowing source of all that’s good and the cure of all ills,” Hawke said. He lit the ball of C-4 and brought the water to a boil. When the coffee was ready he gave the cup to Mellas. Mellas took a sip. Then he closed his eyes and took another. He sighed and handed the steaming coffee back to Hawke.

Hawke made one last desperate stab. “Marines are in trouble. You afraid to help them?” A younger first lieutenant pushed back his chair. 

“That fucking does it,” he said. He slapped his cards down and stood up. Hawke feared that he’d pushed too hard. But the pilot looked over at his bridge partner, obviously his copilot. “What do you think, Nickels?”

“Fuck.” Nickels threw his cards on the table, faceup, and rose to his feet, followed by the first lieutenant. 

“Well, Major?” the lieutenant asked. 

“I believe we’ve been called chickenshit.”

 The florid man sighed and threw his cards onto the table. He rose from his chair, calling out to no one in particular, 

“Anyone got a fucking jeep? I don’t feel like walking to my own funeral.”

“You think I’m fucking Jesus or something? Do I look like Jesus to you?”

“Uh, no sir,” the kid said. But others were now also trying to hide smiles.

“Maybe you think I look like the Virgin Mary?”

“Shit. And I even shaved this morning.”

Hawke, you biggest, baddest of them all. 

“What will the Three say? I mean, did you clear it with him? Leaving your post without permission is serious shit, Hawke.”

“Stevens, the Three needs a Three Zulu like a fucking satyr needs a dildo. There’s two boot lieutenants up there and zero staff. Count them: zero. And a fucking herd of newbies scared shitless down here at the LZ. Besides, I already asked the Three.”

“Jesus,” Stevens said, obviously surprised. “Hard to believe he let you go.”

“Shit, Lieutenant. We might be dead in an hour or two, so I guess this isn’t any time for fucking around not saying what we mean. You OK with that?”“Not with the being dead in a couple of hours part,”Mellas answered. Jackson snorted approval. “OK, sir.”He paused. Then he said, “You’re a racist.”

He was suddenly near tears, but crying was impossible. He felt his jaw tremble and hoped the others wouldn’t notice. “Jesus fucking Christ .” Then, to his shame, he hoped to hell Fitch wouldn’t die so he himself wouldn’t have to take over.

“You just got to remember to get the shit out of your system someplace where you won’t get in trouble.”

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War

Solid representation of an every day marine's experience during the Vietnam war, with good attention payed to the politics within the corps, racial tensions at the time, and the everyday struggle with the futility of the vietnam war 

Simon Crocker

Maurice FitzGerald

Pure cheese. One cliche after another. Like bad movie. No insight. It is essentially a YA Vietnam book. Silly. Kinda gross but not horrifying.

Andrew John Kinney

The best Vietnam novel or personal memoir I have read. Having served in the Army post-Vietnam, and having attended Ranger School and served in a Ranger Battalion, this book resonates with realism about the life of infantry soldiers in the field. The consequences of the hypocrisy of the senior leadership of the United States, civilian and military, are on brutally honest display in Marlantes' tale - death and dismemberment of young men to win battles for hills that were promptly abandoned, reminiscent of the actual battle of Hamburger Hill in May of '69. But the lessons of Vietnam only influenced US policy by restraining the use of the American soldiers and Marines in pointless wars for a little more than a generation, and then we did the same thing in Iraq. For what? When will we ever learn to only fight wars when we truly must? Marlantes' book should be required reading for idiot politicians who send young men and women off to die in foreign countries. Because so few politicians now have served, they are quite casual about sending soldiers to combat, without being, as Mary Chestnut said, "in bitter earnest" about the need to fight. But forget that Marlantes' book is a war story; it is also an expertly told, riveting narrative, worth reading if you care nothing about Vietnam, in the same way that Moby Dick is worth reading regardless of your interest in whaling or the sea.

There are books you finish and those who finish you. This is definitely one of the latter. Wow.

A little anecdote before I will dive in the review: I stumbled over Matterhorn almost three years ago, I don’t remember the occasion or the reason why I looked it up or who recommended it to me, but it was there, in my mind, a book for “sometime in the future”. That was the place it stayed, for quite a while, until June of this year, when I had some time to kill in a beautiful little town in the Netherlands, as I was there for a stag do and the rest of the group was not to arrive for another few hours. I ventured out in the old parts of town and searched for the two most important essentials: coffee and books. The latter I found in a cute little antiquarian bookshop and as books are the best company, even if they are probably not even written in a language you can speak (while I do speak at least somewhat of 6 languages, Dutch is not one of them), I entered, looked around and found a section with English books. A great chat with the bookseller, a promise to come back and two newly purchased books later, I found my way to a café, Matterhorn being one of the books I just bought. Actually finding a book of your TBR, in a language you speak in a foreign country – that’s fate, don’t dare tell me otherwise.

I then started to read it in the summer, but I never managed to get really into it, at first. Once I actually put it as my priority read in December, being the one book, I pick up when I have the time and not having a side-read that’s easier on purpose, I suddenly wasn’t able to put it down anymore. So one thing I would say straight away: Give this book all of your attention, once you start reading it. Especially, if you are, like me, rather unfamiliar with military/marine/combat lingo.

One of my fears before picking this up was for it to turn out to be a glorifying attempt to justify and utilise the proxy war that was the 20 year long killing spree in Vietnam. But this book is exactly what it claimed to be: a devastating story told in the setting of unthinkable horror.

“He tried to stop thinking, but he failed. Now it occurred to him that he’d have to wait for Hawke to rotate home, unless something happened to Hawke. Mellas was amazed and ashamed. He realized that part of him would wish anything, and maybe even do anything, if it meant getting ahead or saving his own skin. He fought that part down.“

The reader joins Bravo Company by following Second Lieutenant Mellas around, who is an inexperienced officer straight out of school and volunteered – out of different motivations, one of them being a CV improvement. Mellas, who is widely perceived to be Karl Marlantes’ Alter Ego, is not a likeable character from the start: He is ambitious, career- and rank-oriented and calculative in terms of what needs to happen for him to progress (faster) and go higher up the ranks. The growth journey this character embarks on, the manifold emotions the reader holds toward him, is just a masterpiece in itself already. As a reader you’ll join this inexperienced, ruthless yet terrified character on his way to become a hero of a war, that doesn’t know heroes. However, not only the growth of one single character, but of the whole company, of this bunch of so very different people forced through these horrors together, the bonding, the slow peaceful moments in settings of absolute carnage, the hot tempers and strong disagreements – the scope of emotions and experiences portrayed truly left me speechless.

Karl Marlantes, who tells this story so devastatingly brutal, laces it with moments of easy camaraderie, of young men having to make decisions so terrible they act out in ruthless adventures once out of the bush for a while and feeling oh so lost in a society that forced them into a mould and does not have a place for them afterwards, but leaves them to fend on their own – yet again, with no resupply, rest or the chance to be med-evaced.

The language he uses is so very authentic, that I frequently consulted the glossary at the end of the book and the more it became natural to me, the easier the reading (in theory) went on. Some recurring expressions imprint themselves on the reader quite fast and I think any reader without much knowledge about the Vietnam war will take away a whole chunk of new understanding just by reading this.

Marlantes tackles so many topics in this masterpiece of literature, that I could only try to list them and probably still miss quite a few. Join me in my attempt, if you will.

“A second reason was that Mellas hadn’t been sure if the noise was dangerous, 

and he was far more worried about asking stupid questions than finding out

. Too many stupid comments and dumb questions at this stage could make it more difficult to gain the respect of the platoon, and it was a lot harder to get ahead if the snuffs didn’t like you or thought you were incompetent.”

One thing completely blindsiding me was how much of a political feeling the whole hierarchy in these troops had right from the start: Newbies not asking questions to gain massively important knowledge out of fear to be perceived as someone who does not know their way around, not speaking up when blatant misjudgements are happening to avoid being seen as difficult – the attempt to gain knowledge seen as weakness will always keep environments inferior to a version they could have grown to, if teaching, questions and verbal missteps were tolerated. How dangerous this is, I probably don’t have to iterate.

Being outspoken and speaking plainly with each other only seems to be possible if the people involved formed some kind of personal connection prior – these scenes were always the ones in which actual “shit got done” and finally some better decisions were made: less focus on being a good politician but maybe a good man looking out for his company, platoon or squad. This was portrayed to happen all the way through the ranks: from Lance Corporal to Major General.

“You just get one thing straight, Mr. Politician: the colonel controls the helicopters.”

These self-made horrors to keep rank, status and perception or respect also led to most good things happening when orders were plainly ignored, and officers risked all of it to finally do the right thing.

Another topic closely related to the political view of the story was the complete and utter dehumanization of the men fighting: Numbers and Kill Ratios were more important to the upper ranks because it made them look better before their superiors and so on – the whole hierarchy trying to save their grace in front of the next higher ranking official felt like a merry-go-round of the same problem at core over and over again, with only those in the bush suffering the consequences of decisions made by the politicians dressed-up in cammies. The soldiers doing the actual fighting are perceived as “weapons”, not humans, thus discussions over risking a chopper to get a less valuable part of the machinery, e.g. a human, to safety, were a frequent occurrence with the decisions rarely made in favour of the living being but the machine which costs a fortune. Even the medical staff back on the hospital ships feel more like mechanics at times than nurses and doctors. The human life itself does not weigh up to the numbers on a paper or the worth of a machine in this setting, it is even risked just to prettify the numbers instead of the actual results. The constant counter-calculating of saving lives and risking machinery, risking soldiers to achieve better suiting numbers – it is utterly devastating to witness.

“We fix weapons.” She shrugged. “Right now you’re a broken guidance system for forty rifles, three machine guns, a bunch of mortars, several artillery batteries, three calibers of naval guns, and four kinds of attack aircraft. Our job is to get you fixed and back in action as fast as we can.”

Marlantes also managed to give the reader an impression on how present blatant racism was within the troops but also of course within the ranks. The effects within the company were horrible enough to get a glimpse on the challenges presented to the officers and marines of having young men with utterly different struggles and backgrounds in life forced into this sort of close proximity and fend for their lives, pretending to them that they are “all the same”. One powerful scene tackling this, besides the fracking scenes of course, was to me when Jackson spoke plainly to our protagonist Mellas of how he is a racist, after Mellas had asked how he could support Black marines in his platoon. The immediate effects of the chasm between parts of the platoon even though others might claim they do not see any colour, for they are all “green”, are the horrible events the reader gets to witness throughout the story over and over again.

Another hard topic the author takes on in this novel is sexism, however it is logically less present than the previous, but the attitude the marines display toward women – not infrequently also paired with racism in their comments – while in the bush and out of reach of female presenting people, as well and more noticeable when coming in contact with nurses, e.g. while on the hospital ships, is nothing else but blatant sexism. Even if our protagonist tries to reason that he does not wish for anything sexual (not only, he says) but also the warm touch, comfort and non-Janus-faced approach while being regarded as something else than an animal or a weapon for once.

Our protagonist Mellas has a particularly hard time struggling with survivor’s guilt: there are many situations in which decisions he straight out made or those when he had no immediate influence on their outcome leave him loosing a comrade to injury, death or politics. While at the beginning of the book the reader might have snapped that it serves him right, I noticed I pity him more than anything else for both the decisions and the outcomes he has to deal with. The feeling of helplessness and only choosing wrong is strongly transported and shows the suffering of the higher-ranking officers as well.

As a result of the experiences he made, Mellas also shows some signs of PTSD, that are not discussed on a larger extent, but are very obvious in the way the marines handle each other and also the nurses stating they can only fix physical ailments, knowing there are far more they sent the soldiers back into the fight with – untreated. While being in the bush without a chance of getting medical attention, medical evacuation or just supplies is a recurring theme in this book, there are also glances in the future of these marines – returning home to a country that does not understand the people anymore, it send away to fight to begin with, and also fails to help them re-integrate in society, but leaves them, yet again, fending for themselves.

One aspect that pleasantly surprised me was the Marines frequently questioning what they are actually fighting for, if they are the evil at action or who those people were, they were fighting. Of course, they also dehumanized the opposing forces, I imagine to not needing to deal with the consequences for their own existence as killers, but there are glimpses in conversations between these soldiers that obviously show what they were moulded into and how some of them actually believe humanity to be the root of all evil and “boot camp just [being] the finishing school”. They seem more aware of their own nature the more the readers progress in the novel and it is fascinating to see, which kind of conclusions they draw for their own lives, consciences, and beliefs. The continuous questioning of the “why” and “for what” also feels very relatable throughout the story, especially if politics for example make them give up a hard and bloodily earned position in the area without any identifiable reason for the abandonment right after. The frustration, despair, and helplessness the characters experience as result of these kinds of decisions felt very raw and painful to me as a reader, too, and Marlantes obviously is a master of transferring emotions felt by his characters to the reader.

While I so far focused on the hurtful, frustrating, and helpless emotions this book made me feel, there were also times I flat out laughed, snickered, chuckled. The easy camaraderie between some of the characters, the routines they settle into, their shenanigans when out of the bush and of course the banter found throughout the whole story, but also the silent comforting touch in times of grief – the storytelling was one of a kind.

“I make the fastest cup of coffee in the Corps. This little cup’s been with me ever since I got here. It’s the ever-flowing source of all that’s good and the cure of all ills. [...] 

" Mellas had to smile. He took the cup. The coffee was sweet and good.

I think, everyone needed a comfort character throughout this book and I for sure know which one was mine. While Mellas did certainly not make the cut, I admire the growth we see in this character from a reckless newbie to someone watching out for his platoon and trying to learn from instead of repeating the mistakes his superiors made before he steps up to take their place. The way Marlantes documented this growth was so subtle that it had me in awe quite a few times, because you just get to witness a character forming old beliefs into newer versions of them and it’s done in a way that you could even miss if you don’t pay attention, because it’s never straight out said “he changed what he thought”, but shown through minute, small changes instead.

To wrap this review up, I wrote almost four pages and I’m still lacking the words. This is such a powerful read, such an impressive journey to embark on and probably one of the few novels even getting close to transporting the experiences marines made in a war that seems so far in the past to someone of my generation. Karl Marlantes managed to tell his story in such a uniquely authentic, vivid way that I’m inclined to agree this is one of the best novels to ever come out of a war. And now straight to my all-time-favourites and will-never-stop-recommending shelves it goes.

There are books you finish and those who finish you. This is definitely one of the latter. Wow.

A little anecdote before I will dive in the review: I stumbled over Matterhorn almost three years ago, I don’t remember the occasion or the reason why I looked it up or who recommended it to me, but it was there, in my mind, a book for “sometime in the future”. That was the place it stayed, for quite a while, until June of this year, when I had some time to kill in a beautiful little town in the Netherlands, as I was there for a stag do and the rest of the group was not to arrive for another few hours. I ventured out in the old parts of town and searched for the two most important essentials: coffee and books. The latter I found in a cute little antiquarian bookshop and as books are the best company, even if they are probably not even written in a language you can speak (while I do speak at least somewhat of 6 languages, Dutch is not one of them), I entered, looked around and found a section with English books. A great chat with the bookseller, a promise to come back and two newly purchased books later, I found my way to a café, Matterhorn being one of the books I just bought. Actually finding a book of your TBR, in a language you speak in a foreign country – that’s fate, don’t dare tell me otherwise.

I then started to read it in the summer, but I never managed to get really into it, at first. Once I actually put it as my priority read in December, being the one book, I pick up when I have the time and not having a side-read that’s easier on purpose, I suddenly wasn’t able to put it down anymore. So one thing I would say straight away: Give this book all of your attention, once you start reading it. Especially, if you are, like me, rather unfamiliar with military/marine/combat lingo.

 

One of my fears before picking this up was for it to turn out to be a glorifying attempt to justify and utilise the proxy war that was the 20 year long killing spree in Vietnam. But this book is exactly what it claimed to be: a devastating story told in the setting of unthinkable horror.

“He tried to stop thinking, but he failed. Now it occurred to him that he’d have to wait for Hawke to rotate home, unless something happened to Hawke. Mellas was amazed and ashamed. He realized that part of him would wish anything, and maybe even do anything, if it meant getting ahead or saving his own skin. He fought that part down.“

The reader joins Bravo Company by following Second Lieutenant Mellas around, who is an inexperienced officer straight out of school and volunteered – out of different motivations, one of them being a CV improvement. Mellas, who is widely perceived to be Karl Marlantes’ Alter Ego, is not a likeable character from the start: He is ambitious, career- and rank-oriented and calculative in terms of what needs to happen for him to progress (faster) and go higher up the ranks. The growth journey this character embarks on, the manifold emotions the reader holds toward him, is just a masterpiece in itself already. As a reader you’ll join this inexperienced, ruthless yet terrified character on his way to become a hero of a war, that doesn’t know heroes. However, not only the growth of one single character, but of the whole company, of this bunch of so very different people forced through these horrors together, the bonding, the slow peaceful moments in settings of absolute carnage, the hot tempers and strong disagreements – the scope of emotions and experiences portrayed truly left me speechless.

Karl Marlantes, who tells this story so devastatingly brutal, laces it with moments of easy camaraderie, of young men having to make decisions so terrible they act out in ruthless adventures once out of the bush for a while and feeling oh so lost in a society that forced them into a mould and does not have a place for them afterwards, but leaves them to fend on their own – yet again, with no resupply, rest or the chance to be med-evaced.

The language he uses is so very authentic, that I frequently consulted the glossary at the end of the book and the more it became natural to me, the easier the reading (in theory) went on. Some recurring expressions imprint themselves on the reader quite fast and I think any reader without much knowledge about the Vietnam war will take away a whole chunk of new understanding just by reading this.

Marlantes tackles so many topics in this masterpiece of literature, that I could only try to list them and probably still miss quite a few. Join me in my attempt, if you will.

“A second reason was that Mellas hadn’t been sure if the noise was dangerous, and he was far more worried about asking stupid questions than finding out. Too many stupid comments and dumb questions at this stage could make it more difficult to gain the respect of the platoon, and it was a lot harder to get ahead if the snuffs didn’t like you or thought you were incompetent.”

 

One thing completely blindsiding me was how much of a political feeling the whole hierarchy in these troops had right from the start: Newbies not asking questions to gain massively important knowledge out of fear to be perceived as someone who does not know their way around, not speaking up when blatant misjudgements are happening to avoid being seen as difficult – the attempt to gain knowledge seen as weakness will always keep environments inferior to a version they could have grown to, if teaching, questions and verbal missteps were tolerated. How dangerous this is, I probably don’t have to iterate.

Being outspoken and speaking plainly with each other only seems to be possible if the people involved formed some kind of personal connection prior – these scenes were always the ones in which actual “shit got done” and finally some better decisions were made: less focus on being a good politician but maybe a good man looking out for his company, platoon or squad. This was portrayed to happen all the way through the ranks: from Lance Corporal to Major General.

“You just get one thing straight, Mr. Politician: the colonel controls the helicopters.”

These self-made horrors to keep rank, status and perception or respect also led to most good things happening when orders were plainly ignored, and officers risked all of it to finally do the right thing.

 

Another topic closely related to the political view of the story was the complete and utter dehumanization of the men fighting: Numbers and Kill Ratios were more important to the upper ranks because it made them look better before their superiors and so on – the whole hierarchy trying to save their grace in front of the next higher ranking official felt like a merry-go-round of the same problem at core over and over again, with only those in the bush suffering the consequences of decisions made by the politicians dressed-up in cammies. The soldiers doing the actual fighting are perceived as “weapons”, not humans, thus discussions over risking a chopper to get a less valuable part of the machinery, e.g. a human, to safety, were a frequent occurrence with the decisions rarely made in favour of the living being but the machine which costs a fortune. Even the medical staff back on the hospital ships feel more like mechanics at times than nurses and doctors. The human life itself does not weigh up to the numbers on a paper or the worth of a machine in this setting, it is even risked just to prettify the numbers instead of the actual results. The constant counter-calculating of saving lives and risking machinery, risking soldiers to achieve better suiting numbers – it is utterly devastating to witness.

“We fix weapons.” She shrugged. “Right now you’re a broken guidance system for forty rifles, three machine guns, a bunch of mortars, several artillery batteries, three calibers of naval guns, and four kinds of attack aircraft. Our job is to get you fixed and back in action as fast as we can.”

Marlantes also managed to give the reader an impression on how present blatant racism was within the troops but also of course within the ranks. The effects within the company were horrible enough to get a glimpse on the challenges presented to the officers and marines of having young men with utterly different struggles and backgrounds in life forced into this sort of close proximity and fend for their lives, pretending to them that they are “all the same”. One powerful scene tackling this, besides the fracking scenes of course, was to me when Jackson spoke plainly to our protagonist Mellas of how he is a racist, after Mellas had asked how he could support Black marines in his platoon. The immediate effects of the chasm between parts of the platoon even though others might claim they do not see any colour, for they are all “green”, are the horrible events the reader gets to witness throughout the story over and over again.

Another hard topic the author takes on in this novel is sexism, however it is logically less present than the previous, but the attitude the marines display toward women – not infrequently also paired with racism in their comments – while in the bush and out of reach of female presenting people, as well and more noticeable when coming in contact with nurses, e.g. while on the hospital ships, is nothing else but blatant sexism. Even if our protagonist tries to reason that he does not wish for anything sexual (not only, he says) but also the warm touch, comfort and non-Janus-faced approach while being regarded as something else than an animal or a weapon for once.

Our protagonist Mellas has a particularly hard time struggling with survivor’s guilt: there are many situations in which decisions he straight out made or those when he had no immediate influence on their outcome leave him loosing a comrade to injury, death or politics. While at the beginning of the book the reader might have snapped that it serves him right, I noticed I pity him more than anything else for both the decisions and the outcomes he has to deal with. The feeling of helplessness and only choosing wrong is strongly transported and shows the suffering of the higher-ranking officers as well.

As a result of the experiences he made, Mellas also shows some signs of PTSD, that are not discussed on a larger extent, but are very obvious in the way the marines handle each other and also the nurses stating they can only fix physical ailments, knowing there are far more they sent the soldiers back into the fight with – untreated. While being in the bush without a chance of getting medical attention, medical evacuation or just supplies is a recurring theme in this book, there are also glances in the future of these marines – returning home to a country that does not understand the people anymore, it send away to fight to begin with, and also fails to help them re-integrate in society, but leaves them, yet again, fending for themselves.

 

One aspect that pleasantly surprised me was the Marines frequently questioning what they are actually fighting for, if they are the evil at action or who those people were, they were fighting. Of course, they also dehumanized the opposing forces, I imagine to not needing to deal with the consequences for their own existence as killers, but there are glimpses in conversations between these soldiers that obviously show what they were moulded into and how some of them actually believe humanity to be the root of all evil and “boot camp just [being] the finishing school”. They seem more aware of their own nature the more the readers progress in the novel and it is fascinating to see, which kind of conclusions they draw for their own lives, consciences, and beliefs. The continuous questioning of the “why” and “for what” also feels very relatable throughout the story, especially if politics for example make them give up a hard and bloodily earned position in the area without any identifiable reason for the abandonment right after. The frustration, despair, and helplessness the characters experience as result of these kinds of decisions felt very raw and painful to me as a reader, too, and Marlantes obviously is a master of transferring emotions felt by his characters to the reader.

 

While I so far focused on the hurtful, frustrating, and helpless emotions this book made me feel, there were also times I flat out laughed, snickered, chuckled. The easy camaraderie between some of the characters, the routines they settle into, their shenanigans when out of the bush and of course the banter found throughout the whole story, but also the silent comforting touch in times of grief – the storytelling was one of a kind.

“I make the fastest cup of coffee in the Corps. This little cup’s been with me ever since I got here. It’s the ever-flowing source of all that’s good and the cure of all ills. [...] It even cures hot tempers." Mellas had to smile. He took the cup. The coffee was sweet and good.

 

I think, everyone needed a comfort character throughout this book and I for sure know which one was mine. While Mellas did certainly not make the cut, I admire the growth we see in this character from a reckless newbie to someone watching out for his platoon and trying to learn from instead of repeating the mistakes his superiors made before he steps up to take their place. The way Marlantes documented this growth was so subtle that it had me in awe quite a few times, because you just get to witness a character forming old beliefs into newer versions of them and it’s done in a way that you could even miss if you don’t pay attention, because it’s never straight out said “he changed what he thought”, but shown through minute, small changes instead.

 

To wrap this review up, I wrote almost four pages and I’m still lacking the words. This is such a powerful read, such an impressive journey to embark on and probably one of the few novels even getting close to transporting the experiences marines made in a war that seems so far in the past to someone of my generation. Karl Marlantes managed to tell his story in such a uniquely authentic, vivid way that I’m inclined to agree this is one of the best novels to ever come out of a war. And now straight to my all-time-favourites and will-never-stop-recommending shelves it goes.

 

“There it is.”

 

Melody Izard

I listened to the audio book and discovered after disk 17 that disk 18 is a pdf with a glossary explaining all the military terms that are just thrown about like we are all straight out of the bush platoon with our M16s accompanied by the senior squid. Yeah. I could have used it earlier. 

The message is pretty bleak, but locco cocoa. This book was written over a 30 year period by a Yale educated highly decorated Marine who served during the Vietnam War. Pretty much the character of lieutenant Mellas. Summed up at the end of the book Mellas decides that death is the only reality. The bush is the only place to be. We are just shadows. We come and we go. We don't change anything. That's it in a body bag. 

There is more really. There's this big struggle between enjoying killing the enemy - and feeling extremely guilty about it. And suddenly understanding that the enemy is just like you and feeling guilty about it. And also worrying that killing the enemy might be no different from murder. And feeling guilty about that. All the while trying to balance staying alive and keeping the members of your platoon or company or battalion or baseball team or whatever you might call it, alive and at the same time advancing your career - if you are in the Marines with the plan for career advancement. 

And don't argue with me. It does deserve 4 stars. I can't tell you why and I don't intend to feel guilty about it.

Gregor Gross

In the tradition of Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead" and James Jones's "The Thin Red Line," Marlantes tells the powerful and compelling story of a young Marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the mountain jungle of Vietnam as boys and forced to fight their way into manhood.

Matterhorn

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