My Detachment: A Memoir
by Tracy Kidder
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Book Summary Information
Author: Tracy KidderEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-10-24
ISBN: 0812976169
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Book Reviews of My Detachment: A Memoir
Book Review: Explains What It Really Was Like in the Rear Echelon
Summary: 5 Stars
Having read "House", I knew that I liked Kidder's writing style and was curious about this book because of my own experiences. Much like Kidder, I was attending graduate school in Boston when I was drafted into the Army and ended up doing a tour of duty in Viet Nam. Also like Kidder, I was somewhat ambivalent about serving in the Army as I did not support the war and did not believe the U S should be in Viet Nam. So we both were sent off to do something that didn't need to be done for people who didn't want it done for them. Kidder does an excellent job of describing the almost fog-like state of mind that someone in their 20s adopts while in the military in order to get through the entire process, from basic training to final discharge.
Kidder discusses how the day you arrived in-country, you started counting off the days until you could leave. It was rare to find anyone who couldn't tell you the number of days until they could DEROS (date of estimated return from overseas) or ETS (estimate termination from service). I will never forget drunken soldiers at NCO clubs, who had been in country all of three days, singing the "Short Song" - the Animals' version of "We Gotta Get Out of this Place."
Kidder does a marvelous job of sharing the sense of tedium you experienced as well as the sense that you were completely and totally wasting your time. For most of us, your only goal and objective in serving in Viet Nam was not to be killed and Kidder helps the reader understand how one would adopt this philosophy. It was clear that we were not out saving America for democracy. Kidder also brings parts of his failed novel on Viet Nam into this book in helping describe the fantasies of those who were serving in the rear echelons.
Kidder does a good job of explaining that many of the people who were sent to Viet Nam were not humping through the boonies but instead were placed in mindless jobs in the rear echelon. There they had to take orders from officers and senior NCOs who were putting in their required time in a war zone because it was a box that needed to be checked off so they could get their next promotion. The constant rotation of new officers on a one year tour meant that for at least the first six months, an officer was learning his job before he became any where close to being proficient. It was almost constant OJT.
This book resonated with me in terms of reminding me of having many of the same experiences and feelings as Kidder described in his book: misadventures on R&R (I was in Bangkok and Kidder was in Singapore but the experience was quite similar); dislike and disdain for "lifers": a sense of how unfair life could be if you received a "dear John" letter from your fiancee; frustration over the fact that most of one's college friends had been clever enough to avoid being drafted and sent to Viet Nam; the fact that your peers viewed you as a "baby killer" instead of a patriot.
If you served in Viet Nam, particularly as a REMF, you will enjoy this book. If you have ever wondered what it was like to spend a year of your life mostly bored to death with moments of abject fear when under mortar, sapper or rocket attack, this book will help explain those sensations. It is well written, is a good read, has a good deal of humor, and takes one back to what it is like to be 23 years old, depressed over being rejected by "the one great love of your life," and totally clueless about what you are doing in a foreign country taking orders from people you do not respect and performing a function that seems completely useless. I really liked the book, but I also lived the experience. Maybe you had to be there.
Summary of My Detachment: A Memoir
My Detachment is a war story like none you have ever read before, an unromanticized portrait of a young man coming of age in the controversial war that defined a generation. In an astonishingly honest, comic, and moving account of his tour of duty in Vietnam, master storyteller Tracy Kidder writes for the first time about himself. This extraordinary memoir is destined to become a classic.Kidder was an ROTC intelligence officer, just months out of college and expecting a stateside assignment, when his orders arrived for Vietnam. There, lovesick, anxious, and melancholic, he tried to assume command of his detachment, a ragtag band of eight more-or-less ungovernable men charged with reporting on enemy radio locations.
He eventually learned not only to lead them but to laugh and drink with them as they shared the boredom, pointlessness, and fear of war. Together, they sought a ghostly enemy, homing in on radio transmissions and funneling intelligence gathered by others. Kidder realized that he would spend his time in Vietnam listening in on battle but never actually experiencing it.
With remarkable clarity and with great detachment, Kidder looks back at himself from across three and a half decades, confessing how, as a young lieutenant, he sought to borrow from the tragedy around him and to imagine himself a romantic hero. Unrelentingly honest, rueful, and revealing, My Detachment gives us war without heroism, while preserving those rare moments of redeeming grace in the midst of lunacy and danger. The officers and men of My Detachment are not the sort of people who appear in war movies?they are the ones who appear only in war, and they are unforgettable.
From the Hardcover edition.
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