The Greatest Beer Run Ever

Starred review from March 30, 2020
In this energetic debut memoir, former Marine Donohue recalls an “insane” idea hatched in a New York City bar in 1967 that led him into the war in Vietnam. As a reaction to antiwar protests, a friend suggested that, to show troops some support, “somebody ought to go over to ’Nam, track down our boys from the neighborhood, and bring them each a beer!” Donohue, writing with New York Daily News columnist Molloy, was the logical choice to be that “somebody,” since, as a civilian seaman in the U.S. Merchant Marine, he possessed a military “Z” card, which allowed him to travel to the country. After a monthlong trip across the Pacific on a freight ship, Donohue managed—with the help of U.S. soldiers willing to break some rules—to actually find some of his friends, including the brother of a grade school friend, whom he links up with just after his ship drops anchor off Qui Nhon; another friend he locates nearly 100 miles away, after managing to get two flights and a helicopter ride from helpful GIs. But the heart of the book is when he finds himself alone in Saigon during the Tet offensive; as he witnesses the storming of the U.S. embassy, he recognizes the false bravado behind his mission and, after arriving home, realizes the antiwar protesters “were at least trying to stop this madness.” Donohue’s memoir is a fascinating, vividly narrated recollection of the chaos of the Vietnam War.

November 1, 2020
The story of a patriotic prankster's freelance incursion into Vietnam, bringing cheer (and beer) to Americans at war. As Molloy notes in the introduction, "Chick" Donohue seems an archetypal two-fisted, old-school New Yorker, a military veteran who'd become a Teamster and tunnel "sandhog." In 1967, then a Marine veteran and merchant mariner, he accepted an outsized challenge at Doc Fiddler's Bar in the Irish enclave of Inwood: to bring beer to neighborhood youth serving in Vietnam. "I was spurred to go to Vietnam," writes Donohue, "by the sight of antiwar demonstrators in Central Park protesting against my friends from the neighborhood who were serving in the military. Having served overseas in the marines myself, I could only imagine what my buddies were feeling." This tale seems improbable even by the standards of military yarns, but the narrative gains authenticity from the credible perspectives of the young American soldiers as well as the gritty sense of place. Sailing from New York to Vietnam, Chick found friends from Inwood, who reacted with humorous disbelief. Dramatic tension increases with the authors' account of Chick's observing combat patrols firsthand. He missed his ship and was stranded in Saigon just before the Tet Offensive, witnessing the enemy attack on the U.S. Embassy. Stuck in a war zone, Chick scrounged food and lodging from old friends and colorful new acquaintances, his views transformed alongside American soldiers' worsening fortunes: "I had believed that we were winning....But our leaders had told us Charlie was losing the war, and then they pop up all over the country? Tet changed everything." Finally, Chick escaped aboard a supply ship that needed crew following the attacks--"I was never so happy to be below deck in a hot engine room"--and he acknowledges his changed perspective: "I wanted to go home...and all the mariners and all the soldiers in Vietnam to go home." Indeed, a poignant afterword highlights the fortunes of the soldiers encountered on Donohue's beer run, not all of whom returned. An irreverent yet thoughtful macho adventure reflecting the tumult of a fast-fading era.

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