What It Is Like to Go to War

Bronson Pinchot does an outstanding job of presenting Karl Marlantes's memoir of war, trauma, and recovery. Marlantes tells the harrowing story of his time in Vietnam and how it affected him for three decades after. His story is directed to fellow combat veterans, their families, and those who make policy about them--but it's of interest to everyone. Refreshingly, Rhodes Scholar Marlantes doesn't present himself as a faceless everyman but employs the full range of his considerable intelligence. Pinchot deftly follows as Marlantes shifts from well-told battle stories to policy analysis, then to Jungian archetypes, and back again. His tone is sometime matter-of-fact and sometimes passionate (almost shouting) in marvelous synchrony with the author's words. F.C. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Starred review from June 20, 2011
Marlantes, author of the highly acclaimed novel Matterhorn, reflects in this wrenchingly honest memoir on his time in Vietnam: what it means to go into the combat zone and kill and, most importantly, what it means to truly come home. After graduating from Yale, Marlantes attended Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. But not wanting to hide behind privilege while others fought in his place, he left Oxford in 1967 to ship out to Vietnam as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. He eschews straight chronology for a blend of in-country reporting and the paradoxical sense of both fear and exhilaration a soldier feels during war. Most importantly, Marlantes underscores the need for returning veterans to be counseled properly; an 18-year-old cannot "kill someone and contain it in a healthy way." Digging as deeply into his own life as he does into the larger sociological and moral issues, Marlantes presents a riveting, powerfully written account of how, after being taught to kill, he learned to deal with the aftermath. Citing a Navajo tale of two warriors who returned home to find their people feared them until they learned to sing about their experience, Marlantes learns the lesson, concluding, "This book is my song,"

Starred review from February 1, 2012

Yale- and Oxford-educated Marlantes (Matterhorn) served as a Marine infantry officer in Vietnam and here presents his very personal and emotional musings on the nature of war, courage, and all the multiple and often contradictory emotions one endures in combat. His point is that while we prepare our warriors in the technical and tactical aspects of war, we do not prepare them for the emotional toll that it will exact from those who survive. Bronson Pinchot reads with a relatively soft and understated baritone that is actually quite engaging. He becomes, in this performance, Marlantes--recalling incidents of combat and the horror and exhilaration that one withstands. Public, academic, and military libraries should purchase. ["Humanizing, empathetic, and wise, this reading experience will light corners in the human experience often judged dark," read the review, also starred, of the New York Times best-selling Atlantic Monthly hc, LJ 9/15/11.--Ed.]--Michael T. Fein, Central Virginia Community Coll. Lib., Lynchburg

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