"Matterhorn", a long book about a brief segment of a much, much longer conflict. It is a semi-fictional, probably semi-biographical story of newly arrived Lt. Waino Mellas and his experiences in Bravo Company, 24th Marines. It will be a major publishing success (and probably a cinematic one, as well). It explicitly depicts small-unit combat. It places the war in context with prevailing social tension. It provides nasty but sympathetic descriptions of the mechanics of decision-making in the modern U.S. armed services. It has an unpretentious, revealing writing style uncommon in modern books, at least in those whose author's aspire to greatness. It succeeds in just about every important aspect.
Karl Marlantes, as is well-known by now, is a highly decorated Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam war. He also possesses a stellar intellect, having degrees from Yale and Oxford. While the chronology is not clear (education first, then Vietnam or conversely), Marlantes clearly had the smarts to avoid the war, had he chosen to do so. Instead, maybe reflecting his upbringing in a small Northwestern town, Marlantes joined the Marines and ended up in Vietnam, either by intent or by bad luck. There are still plenty of characters like him in the modern military, but now that the draft is defunct, fewer of us will encounter them in the trying circumstances of military life.
Regardless, after returning to "the world", Marlantes began writing a semi-fictional novel incorporating his experiences as a newly arrived grunt in 'Nam. While nothing sells like a war novel, this one didn't. In fact, it apparently suffered numerous rejections before an obscure Berkeley press (Le Leon Literary Arts) published it. According to the tale, the book was promoted locally, received rave reviews and Marlantes was eventually signed by Grove/Atlantic. By chance, the edited version of the book appeared nearly on time to coincide with the 40th anniversary (May 4, 2010) of the Kent State University student protester killings by National Guard troops, inadvertently providing some context for the tale for those that remember it, as Vietnam was not only a "small war", as the current jargon terms it, but a societal event of tremendous magnitude in America and worldwide.
First, the story: "Still the guns churned this treacherous slime. Every day conditions grew worse. What had once been difficult now became impossible..." Those words could have come directly from Melas, in Bravo Company of the 24th Marines, but were actually penned by General Gough in 1917 about the Flanders campaign. Mud, stupifying boredom, depravation and impossible demands on physical and mental endurance are the theme of this book. "Matterhorn" contains a representative cross-section of American society of the late 1960s and they react to these demands with all the variability one can expect. The story occurs over a brief time span (less than a month) and concentrates on operations along the far northeastern border of South Vietnam (near the DMZ and Laos) and revolves around establishing landing zones Matterhorn, Helicopter Hill and Sky Cap. The evolution of Lt. Mellas as a soldier, as a combat leader and as an insightful and empathetic human being is the unifying theme. Placed in close confines and forced into intimate and inescapably continuous contact were angry black militants, "lifers" (career military, some of whom were cynical careerists and others reluctant warriors), the dumb, the intelligent, the hypochondriacs, the adventurers and the simply deluded. Lt. Mellas, newly arrived in the company, must immediately establish credibility and respect with this diverse group. He does so by demonstrating competence, endurance, calmness, intelligence and empathy. Bravo Company spends much of the time enduring monotonous jungle marches in suffocating heat and humidity, plowing through dense elephant grass, bamboo and muddy trails. They suffer with leeches, heavy loads, skin diseases, rotting clothes, constant fear of ambush and, in large part, the additional burden imparted by the suspicion that they are wasting their time, this due to the questionable competence and motives of their higher-level commanders who now, through the means of modern technology, are capable of directing and interfering with small units that in previous conflicts, would have been given a general order and left to their own devices on exactly how to execute it. When battle is finally joined with the professional North Vietnamese Army (not the Vietcong irregulars), combat is at close quarters and sometimes hand-to-hand. Casualties are high. The devastating effects of modern small arms is often forgotten, but not in this book. Positions are taken, abandoned and ordered re-taken. Unremitting self-sacrifice, patience and courage seem to be the standard currency of Bravo. Most unit leaders are competent. Some are brilliant. Some unlucky and one is stupid.
The writing: All characters, major and minor, are symbols. While this is standard fare in military books, its also standard fare in reality. People tend to typecast more starkly under prolonged tension and in conditions of constant, intimate and unwanted contact. Marlantes is quite good at depicting this without embellishment, though sometimes he verges on maudlin and his characters utter inane platitudes, just like in real life. The sub-plots, as with the characters, are well-developed. Its clear that Marlantes writes from direct experience and is consistently sincere. His brief interviews (available on the internet) confirm this. He is just as he appears to be from the book.
The bigger picture: With Vietnam, a contentious and genuinely historically important event for the U.S., some effort needs be made to understand not only the experiences of the "little man" (the combatants), but that of the hierarchy, as well. Marlantes leaves aside the geo-strategic and grand political dimensions, focusing instead on the purely military aspects of the conflict. Naturally, these are a microcosm of bigger issues and by studying the small, insights into the large are sometimes given, by design or unintentionally. Sometimes, it appears as if Marlantes hopes to vindicate the U.S. mission in Vietnam and his rationalizations for the cynical manipulations (at the cost of lives) by Simpson and Blakely (two higher-ranking commanders) are excused and justified within the context of military hierarchy, tradition and discipline. All well and good, but it seems that Marlantes does this for no good reason other than self-justification. Certainly, he fails to demonstrate why the 24th Regiment's commanders should have received anything but censure. Marlantes is certainly remiss in tacitly accepting the proposition that the "Marines are here to kill the enemy". The Marines could not win a war of attrition and that is just exactly what the Vietnam War was. On the other hand, the Nagoolians (the North Vietnamese) were going to suffer any losses over any conceivable duration in order to prevail, as a simple glance at the history of the independence movement would reveal. "Kill ratios", the accepted standard of accomplishment, were meaningless and deceiving. The attempts of the mechanized U.S. Army (and Marines) to force set-piece battles where their material and technical advantages would prevail (such as the battles for Matterhorn/Helicopter Hill) were just such attempts and failed to accomplish their goals. While Marlantes acknowledges all of that tacitly, his characters never seem to grasp the essential point.
The conclusion: "Matterhorn" is not a good book. "Matterhorn" is a great book. It is an honest and unpretentious study of combat which could have only been written by someone who has experienced the events at first hand. Its major deficiency is its tacit endorsement of the military's view of the conflict; its apparent endorsement of the failure to make a "full commitment", its futile effort to force the enemy to fight the kind of war the U.S military was adept at fighting, rather than the one it was actually engaged in. Marlantes accepts the military hierarchy for what it was and is, either not recognizing or not accepting the continuity between WW-I General Haig and Vietnam General Westmoreland. Perhaps the most fitting coda for this book would be this, written by a veteran of Ravebeke in the Flanders campaign,"Anyway we are out now and I don't mind much. Only I'd like to have a talk with some war corresponents-liars they are."Get more detail about
Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War.
