A rumor of war

Format:

Book

Title:

A rumor of war

Author:

Caputo, Philip.

ISBN:

9780030176319

Edition:

1st ed.

Publication Information:

Physical Description:

xix, 346 pages ; 24 cm

General Note:

Autobiographical.

Contents:

The splendid little war -- The officer in charge of the dead -- In death's grey land.

Summary:

The author recounts his experiences during the sixteen months he spent as a Marine infantry officer in the Vietnam war.

Program Information:

Accelerated Reader AR UG 7.5 20 47658.

Personal Subject:

Caputo, Philip.

Caputo, Philip. (OCoLC)fst00048137

Corporate Subject:

United States. Marine Corps -- Biography.

United States. Marine Corps. (OCoLC)fst00528845

Subject(s):

United States. Marine Corps -- Biography.

Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- Personal narratives, American.

Soldiers -- United States -- Biography.

Geographic Term:

United States.

Genre:

Biographies.

Personal narratives -- American.

Autobiographies.

Personal narratives.

Autobiography.

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Monmouth Public Library	959.704 CAPUTO	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Salem Main Library	959.70438 Caputo 1977	Searching... Unknown

The classic Vietnam memoir, as relevant today as it was almost thirty years ago. In March of 1965, Marine Lieutenent Philip J. Caputo landed at Da Nang with the first ground combat unit deployed to Vietnam. Sixteen months later, having served on the line in one of modern history's ugliest wars, he returned home-- physically whole but emotionally wasted, his youthful idealism forever gone. "A Rumor of War" is more than one soldier's story. Upon its publication in 1977, it shattered America's indifference to the fate of the men sent to fight in the jungles of Vietnam. In the years since then, it has become not only a basic text on the Vietnam War but also a renowned classic in the literature of wars throughout history and, as Caputo explains, of " the things men do in war and the things war does to men." " A singular and marvelous work." -- "The New York Times"

Author Notes

Philip Caputo was born on June 10, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois. He received a B.A. from Loyola University in 1964. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1964 to 1967. His first book, A Rumor of War (1977), recounts his military tour of Vietnam. He has written more than fifteen books including Horn of Africa, Indian Country, Equation for Evil, Crossers, and The Longest Road.

His journalism career began in 1968, when he joined the staff of the Chicago Tribune, serving as a general assignment and team investigative reporter until 1972 and then as a foreign correspondent for the next five years. In 1972 he and Hugh Jones received a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of election fraud in the primaries. He has also written for the New York Times, Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. He has worked as a screenwriter for Paramount Pictures and Michael Douglas Productions.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Kirkus Review

Caputo arrived in Danang with the Marines in 1965 during the early ""confident, complacent"" days when hardly anyone took the Vietcong seriously. When he left a year later the romance had gone out of the splendid little war, the erosion of idealism was well under way, and a sense of futility had crept over the soldiers like the Vietnam mud. He writes with the sang-froid appropriate to a Marine officer and the acuity of a professional journalist--which, after his return stateside, he became. Caputo neither screams of horrors and outrages nor recoils from them. ""Anyone who fought in Vietnam, if he is honest about himself, will have to admit he enjoyed the compelling attractiveness of combat""; he experienced exhilaration as well as revulsion. And anyone who still harbors the illusion that Lt. Calley was a monstrous aberration will find out from Caputo that it's not so. Caputo can testify that the ""collective emotional detonation of men who had been pushed to the extremities of endurance"" is as inevitable as the wordless tenderness that binds the soldiers in a platoon. Caputo's supreme accomplishment is to make the war--this particular no-win war which never conformed to expectations--psychologically comprehensible to those who can only blame or mourn. ""I had to go back"" ten years later to watch the final exodus of US forces. That emotional imperative emerges from the book, driven home by Caputo's dear-sighted, unsentimental record of a legacy that will not relinquish its hold. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Intense and unsparingly graphic, Caputo's memoir of his 16 months in Vietnam in the mid-sixties describes experiences that aged young men overnight and turned them into killers. (My 15 77 Adult)

Prologue	p. xiii
Part 1 The Splendid Little War	p. 1
Part 2 The Officer in Charge of the Dead	p. 151
Part 3 In Death's Grey Land	p. 209
Epilogue	p. 338

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