A review by ssindc
A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo

3.0

Not sure why it took me so long to get around to what is considered one of the "classic" retrospectives on the Vietnam War. I'm guessing that it was Marlantes' (terrific) Matterhorn that prompted me to look back at what I'd missed. (So many books, so little time.) I read Dispatches long enough ago, that it's tough to compare, but I can understand why they're often part of the same discussion. Obviously, this is a highly personal account of a horrible point in time in a miserable place. (There are still times when I shake my head that I somehow successfully completed a military "career" without being shot at or firing a shot in anger.) Caputo is an experienced journalist - so it's no surprise that the prose is clear and unvarnished and raw - and for that reason - effective and compelling. In the end, I'm glad that there's so much of this type of biography (and auto-biography and literature) out there so that my two sons (who can read books like Walter Dean Meyers artfully done Fallen Angels and his Sunrise Over Fallujah) won't need to grow up in a world where war is glorified and its human costs ignored.