#NonficNov 2021 Bloods by Wallace Terry

• Author: Wallace Terry
• Title: Bloods
• Published: 1984
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Quick Scan:

1. In 1967, Terry Wallace  left for Vietnam as
2. …TIME magazine’s deputy bureau chief in Saigon.
3. During his two-year tour, he covered the Tet Offensive,  joined assault troops
4. in the Ashau Valley and on Hamburger Hill.
5. He’d seen more of his share of horror.
6. Getting this book published became an obsession for Wallace Terry.
7. After thirteen years, Wallace  had sent the manuscript to a hundred publishers
8. ..and received a hundred rejections
9. Finally in  1984 Random House agreed to publish
10. …and the book was a best-seller.
11. In these 20 interviews the soldiers speak about their experiences
12. with exceptional candor and passion.
13. They give the reader a sense of what
14. …it was like as a black man to serve in Vietnam.
15. Also we learn what it was like to come back to the real world.

Some notes....

CH 1 –  Private First Class “Malik”  Edwards – 17 yr  marine from Louisiana

Staccato dialogue, black American vocabulary/grammar, first impressions enlisting, jail during boot camp, first kill in Viet Nam – dishonorable ( Edwards was a trouble maker) discharged from Marine corp…and only the Black Panthers seemed the logical place to end up in.

Conclusion: All in all reading this had a shock affect on me. Edwards claimed “it’s like institutionalized insanity. When you’re in combat you can basically do what you want as long as you don’t get caught. You can get away with murder.”

CH 2 – Specialist 5 “Light Bulb” Bryant – US Army from Illinois

Nickname ‘Light Bulb” b/c Bryant was always full of  ideas. Harrowing story about trying to save a soldier trapped on a mine…on a “Bouncin’ Betty”. Trivia: I was reading this chapter  (squad combat engineers who had to stay all night in a crashed Chinook) and had a feeling of déjà vu! I realized the  movie I’d seen –> Spike Lee’s” Da 5 Bloods” (2020) is based on this book!    The soldier admits: “Today…I walk down streets different. I look at places where people could hide. I hear things that other people can’t hear.”  War changes people.

Conclusion: This was a very good chapter. Sp 5 Bryant watches a his good friend gets killed ….shaken he tries to gather the body parts. Bryant stays in contact with the man’s mother. Bryant has lost his faith but reads the bible 1 x per year cover-to-cover still looking for an explanation for all he has been through.

CH 3 – Specialist 4 R.J. Ford III – US Army from Washington, D.C.

Stunning story of a soldier describing his PTSD. There is always a quote in the chapter that stops me in my tracks. For example, “They lost my medical records when they (US government) wanted to. Now they got em’ back when they wanted to. They just wanted another black in the field.”

Conclusion:

1. Every interview was like watching a movie about Viet Nam!
2. Action is on the edges of war…in the jungle
3. honor, personal crisis, exhaustion and ….friendship on
4. the battlefield.

1. Strong point:  the interview does not stop in Viet Nam
2. …we  follow the soldier as he returns home.
3. How does he cope…with PTSD?
4. Amazed how “messed up” these boys become after war.

1. Strong point: Wallace Terry does NOT sugarcoat the …fog of war.
2. The uncertainty about the soldier’s capability to fight the VC
3. …that slip in and out of the jungle unseen.
4. At times I had to cringe and skim over some details of the battle
5. …and even worse the ‘aftermath’ of the fight like…
   
6. torture, body counts, soldier’s delight in killing…body part trophies.
7. I never read that in the newspapers!
   
8. But there were also examples of kindness, 
9. dramatic heroism and …even a moment when
10. …Luther C. Benton III found God in battle.

Last thoughts:

1. What makes an outstanding author?
2. Voice. Intelligence. A devotion to language
3. …Wallace Terry checks all the boxes.
4. #MustRead