Customer Reviews

Fire Mission:The World of Nam-a Marine's Story

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While there are many book from Vietnam veterans about their time in `Nam on bookstore shelves today, there are too-few good ones. "Fire Mission" is one of the few good ones.

Author Earl Gorman was a Marine officer fighting in Vietnam in 1965-1966. An artilleryman, his was a slightly different view of the war; at times he was stationed out in the field with an infantry unit as a forward observer where he lived and worked with a `grunt' unit, and then later was based back on the gun line responsible for a battery of 105mm howitzers.

Gorman is an excellent writer with a grasp of detail. "Fire Mission" (an artillery term) lets the reader begin to understand the mindset of a Marine officer trying to maintain his moral balance in the midst of a brutal war. He comments on his disgust in seeing VC bodies being displayed for American civilian and military visitors from Saigon, yet keeps his humanity as he meets and builds a relationship with a Vietnamese mother and daughter.

Commenting on the politics, Rules of Engagement, his superiors, and his times in combat, former 1st Lt Gorman blends the sarcasm and accuracy of a young Marine with the poignant observations and recollections of an older citizen soldier; one who has done his duty to his country yet hopes that others may not have to follow in his footsteps. Well done, Sir!

I was looking for truth about the Viet Nam experience and found it in FIRE MISSION. I read it cover to cover- not able to put it down.
This book is well-written and gives the reader the straight story without bias. It is bold, personal and grips you from the first chapter. I have read other Viet Nasm reconts, but have never read one that is as honest as this one. I recommend it to anyone who wnts to read a personal story framed in history and truth.

I read Earl Gorman's "Fire Mission" in two days...couldn't put it down. The reality of the daily life and death struggle, command incompetence, gentleness (or perfidy) of the Vietnamese, and the whimsy of the bullet and the bomb were extraordinarily compelling.

And the juxtaposition of hunt-and-kill with unbridled spirituality is something new in the literature of this, our second most stupid war.

I highly recommend this book for everyone who wants to understand how it really was in Viet Nam; how most of our troops responded with courage and compassion; and how war - any war - changes those who fight it.

Earl Gorman's "Fire Mission" is a moving account of his experiences with the US Marines as an artillery spotter in the years 1965-66 near Da Nang, Vietnam. I have spent a lot of time in the Da Nang area today as an English teacher working at a school for children. Mr. Gorman's book was an inspiration to me in my efforts to help with development in Vietnam today. His is a great book about recounting difficult past experiences, going on a healing journey, and then moving forward into the future. Mr. Gorman tells about returning to Vietnam in 2007 with the humanitarian group Vets With A Mission. Amazingly, while on that trip (some 40 years later) he was able to locate some of his dear "long lost" Vietnamese friends. His story has lessons for everyone, no matter what your opinion of America's involvement in Vietnam may be.

Mr. Gorman, thanks for sharing your story and journey with us!

Phil Archer
Da Nang, Vietnam, January 2010

If you are looking for an intimate glimpse into the early days of the Viet Nam war, from the on-site, day-to-day perspective of a Marine's tour of duty there in 1965-66, I highly recommend this book.

I do so because of what it reveals about one man's transformation as an officer in combat - the roller coaster of emotions from his initial awe of the visual paradise that was Viet Nam to the raw realities of the war he experienced that almost took his life. Viet Nam was, as he writes, a "rabbit hole": "When we fell through the rabbit hole, the long tumble turned into a curious, captivating journey; a glimpse of heaven and hell, all for the price of one year in our trip through eternity."

He offers a blunt critique of the way the war was - and was not - fought in those initial years and spares no criticism for some of his immediate superiors and the leaders in Washington. The journal he kept and now shares with the reader provides insights that are frank and honest, like the opposing opinions quoted from a letter written home in May 1966 ("...all the men and money we are spending, I'm afraid is for naught.") to one a couple months later in July 1966 ("We are so mighty they can never hope to defeat us.").

The culmination of the story is his cathartic return to Viet Nam in 2007 (with a humanitarian mission) and reunion with two Vietnamese girls - now women - with whom he had developed a deep and emotional bond during his deployment. Reuniting with them helped close the wounds of his war experience that had never healed. As he writes, "Some memories from Nam are never lost; moreover, they become baggage we carry around the rest of our lives." He calls his return "an inspirational form of therapy...I could feel emotional wounds healing; the sensation of bad karma literally burning off my soul layer by layer. An aperture in my heart was being filled with God's grace." And if you've got a heart, you cannot help but be moved by the story he tells of his needle-in-a-haystack tracking down of and reuniting with these two women.

The thread running through the book, which I did not expect and which makes this narrative all that more poignant, was Gorman's religious faith. Throughout he shares his faith and strong Catholic upbringing, which was key to how he was able to cope with the war. Prayer was a regular part of his daily life and is reflected in how he approached his role as an officer and as a caring, compassionate man who was so challenged and conflicted by the situation in which he found himself. Despite how he felt toward those North Vietnamese soldiers and guerillas who were killed by his unit, he found it in himself to say prayers over their bodies. But by year's end even he was insensitized, becoming apathetic and indifferent to death, admitting he "desperately needed to crawl back up out of the rabbit hole."

Join Gorman in the rabbit hole to share in his eye-opening account and experience an enriching journey of your own.

"Fire Mission: The World of Nam-a Marine's story" is a great true story. This book captures your attention by describing harrowing experiences during the war. It exposes some of the rules that were enforced by the U.S. military that made success very difficult for it's soldiers. And it beautifully and vividly describes the Vietnam backdrop that hosts such a gory war. The author's travels back to the country in 2007 create an interesting twist, because he finds two women he had befriended while in Nam in the 60's. Highly recommended!