China Wind [Mass Market Paperback]

Dan Guenther (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (January 29, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804105286
• ISBN-13: 978-0804105286
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,365,670 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dan Guenther is the author of four novels and two collections
of poetry. He was a captain in the Marine Corps and his Vietnam
trilogy is based on his combat experiences in Southeast Asia.
His award-winning fourth novel, Glossy Black Cockatoos, is set
in Australia and Laos following the Fall of Saigon. The Crooked Truth,
his second collection of poetry, was the 2011 Colorado Authors' League
award selection for poetry (books). Guenther is a graduate of Coe College
and holds an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Being there, January 31, 2008

By 

M. Laurin (Aurora, Colorado USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: China Wind (Paperback)

What makes a book enticing, all consuming, and in the end rewarding? It is the feeling of being in the same room with the characters, sitting in a chair observing the action. I felt this a number of times reading China Wind--the many and varied lessons of leadership between Sam and his constantly changing superiors; the capture of the young boy and the murder of the East German nurse / spy; the fire fight were Sam and the old Vietnamese man were the only ones to survive; the attack of the Frenchman on Lowy and Sam; the disposing of the Frenchman's body in the pond; and, the many discussions between Sam, his superiors, and his direct reports over beers in the Grand Hotel. I was struck by the powerful imagery of the bird drinking the remnants of alcohol from a glass and getting drunk while Sam was being told how to lead his team of "track rats", the black cat's swift death by the silent and deadly rocket pistol, and Sam's unexplained attraction to the King Cobra living in an ancient barrier wall. The book's title plays out subtlety in the narrative. The first time it was introduced, it was so subtle that it required re-reading of the chapter, which was well worth the effort. China Wind is all encompassing. I thought about the book day and night, at home and at work. The contradiction of a great book: I couldn't wait to finish it, and it ended too soon.

5.0 out of 5 stars This is not just another Vietnam War novel..., October 1, 2011

By 

Dick Cummins (San Diego, CA, US) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: China Wind (Paperback)

China Wind is a novel in the form of daily journal entries by fictional Marine Lieutenant Sam Gatlin. It begins in Quang Nam Province on May 24, 1968 and ends with a final entry seven months later as Lieutenant Gatlin is waiting for a transport to fly him back to the world.

When I got to Gatlin's summer entries of 1968, I couldn't help contrasting them with what I was doing at home then which was covering the riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago for a college magazine. To say I was ablaze with anti-war and anti-draft passion would be an understatement.

Lieutenant Gatlin's world was just a little different from mine. Here's an example of how his morning went on July 21st, 1968.

`Captain Watley says, "... he's a VC ... Division says it is in the national interest to snuff him."

"Who said that in Division?"

"You dare to question me?"

"You just ordered Atrey to snuff a prisoner. That's bs and you know it ... Let's go!" I said to my men, sensing what was about to happen ...

"Atrey!" he yelled. ... "I want you here! The others can go."

"Yes sir," Atrey said, looking at me for help.

`I shook my head ... my experience in Viet Nam ... had already shaken my beliefs about things like human dignity, honor and the presumption of a higher purpose. I would have to redefine everything.'

`A single pistol shot rang out, Atrey blew on the smoking barrel of his 45 and walked away...'

It wasn't long after this incident that a map-reading, by-the-book, Division HQ officer dresses Lieutenant Gatlin down for not keeping his men up to Marine disciplined spit and polish spec - fighting in the jungle.

Soon there comes an order for the lieutenant to setup his amphibious tracks as a decoy to take fire and expose a VC ambush position. I couldn't help imagining him trying to explain this order over the radio to his men as they positioned their vulnerable tracks on a muddy trail inviting the RPG attack.

Then, after molten slag rips through one of his tracks and kills the driver, Lieutenant Gatlin has to write a letter home to the boy's parents and tell them that their brave son died to help keep Americans at home safe from the little brown men that killed him.

There are gripping combat scenes and unforgettable details in this book, some bizarre and almost comic details too; a prototype `rocket' pistol (real weapon - not fictional) that silently fires rocket-propelled bullets and is used kill a spy. Then there is the fish attractor built for an officer who loves bass fishing at home by a Marine electronics expert; it ends up attracting a huge ball of poisonous sea snakes into the Bay of Qua Nang when tested, sending the little floatilla of curious Marines paddling back to safety on the beach.

Not comical are the intrigue and betrayals in 'China Wind', good men and women dying violently - as they did, and will again, in all wars, adding to the feel of reality in this battle-hardened page-turner.

The central metaphor of the book is that cold wind blowing down each winter into Viet Nam from China, that before her death, the beautiful character `Sky Lady' says `changes everything':

"Americans like China Wind. Blow very hard one direction ... then sure to change."

And Lieutenant Gatlin suspects that she, like all the Vietnamese he meets in the book, may be spying for the north.

This book is the first volume of writer Guenther's three novels called the `Lost Viet Nam Trilogy'. In his second book `Dodge City Blues', the author has an `ah-ha' moment.

"We've lost our moral authority here. There's no way to win their hearts and minds without that."

Finishing the book, I sat thinking about Guenther's metaphorical China Wind; for me it had become an anti-colonial tempest, the same nationalist gale that blew the British out of Indian and the French out of Viet Nam and then Algeria too.

There is a `when will they learn' philosophical feel to this book because writer Guenther is a `thinking man's warrior' - wondering about the difference between the creative combat tactics he has to come up with in the jungle to save the lives of his men versus the `mysterious' strategic planning going on back in `Division' - the `big picturing' back in the nice safe Pentagon in DC.

`Much of the time we didn't understand the big picture or know what to believe.' he says.

After reading this I could see Lieutenant Gatlin starring down at a table covered with tactical jig saw puzzle pieces, yelling for someone to please, please show him the damn picture on the puzzle box - because it could save the lives of his men and possibly his own!

My opinion is that all three of Guenther's `Lost Viet Nam Trilogy' novels should be required reading for the Master's program in Strategic Studies offered at our National War College.

A few years ago my wife and I walked along the Viet Nam Memorial Wall in DC with over 58 thousand names engraved on it of the men and women who died nearly 40 years ago in country - a country that is now one of our favored exporting trading partners.

Domino theory? Go figure.

Read China Wind first and then everything that Dan Guenther, former Marine Captain and Vietnam veteran has written - you'll be entertained AND enlightened.

And a little melancholy is all right too.

Dick Cummins

This is from the home page of The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 'TheWall-USA'dot com.

"If you are able, save for them a place inside you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go. Be not ashamed to say you loved them ... take what they have taught you with their dying ... and in that time when men ... feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind."

Major Michael Davis O'Donnell, Killed in Action, Dak To, Vietnam

5.0 out of 5 stars We Were Marines Once and Young, January 19, 2011

By 

TC (CO) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: China Wind (Paperback)

China Wind is the first Vietnam fiction book I have read. It is a very real glimpse into what it must have been like to be a Marine officer (or enlisted man) in Vietnam in 1968, particularly in that part of the country.

While the protagonist is Marine Lieutenant Sam Gatlin, the story is based on both the direct and vicarious experiences of the author when he was a Lieutenant (later Captain) in Vietnam. To that extent, I consider the book more fact that fiction.

China Wind reminds me of the Tour of Duty television series of the late 1980s. Like Tour of Duty, China Wind highlights the entire panoply of events, experiences and emotions associated with that complex and frustrating war, some aspects of which even those of us who served there did not know about...or did not want to know about.

The book is engrossing. It is well-written and hard to stop reading once you start. For those that did not serve, this book will help you to understand what it was like to be a U.S. Marine at that time and in that place....if you can handle it.

For those of us that did serve, it is a "heavy" trip down memory lane. It reminds us of when we were "Marines Once and Young" and the still unappreciated risks and sacrifices made by the heroes of the "baby boom" generation when their country called!

TC Hall

USMC - Vietnam

1966-67