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The Last Klick

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The Last Klick
I'm a history buff, so I have read numerous books on war - the Civil War, World War II and, of course, the Vietnam War. Some were non-fiction like We Were Soldiers Once and Young by General Hal Moore and some were fiction like Ordinary Heroes by Scott Turow. I enjoy non fiction, biographies and the like, but my true love is fiction because I love great writing. The Last Klick by Robert Flynn is the best of both worlds - great writing combined with the realities of war as he saw it as a writer for True Magazine on assignment in Vietnam.

The main character, Sherrill O'Connor, is recovering from the pain of losing his only daughter to a fatal illness while attempting to restructure his life in some manageable and tolerable way in the aftermath. Leaving his wife, Marie, back home, he heads to Vietnam to make his name as a writer for REAL Magazine and to rediscover himself as a disoriented husband and childless father.

Trailing the grunts, O'Connor soon finds himself in a dangerous firefight where he must pick up a weapon and kill enemy soldiers in order to survive.. For this and his adrenalin-driven statements, he is heralded by other war correspondents whose embellished stories make their way back home. He is told this is "his moment" to seize toward achieving the fame his novels have yet to provide. Carpe Diem. A series of incidents, conversations, unauthorized editing of his stories and outright lies propel him into a surrealistic predicament whereby he is constantly denying and justifying his beliefs and behavior. Soon, his wife, who has taken a job in his absence, is caught up in the anti-war crowd who has portrayed him as a monster, and it shakes the very foundation of their marriage.

Flynn takes the reader on a bizarre journey. weaving through the decadent, seedy back streets of Saigon.

"A short distance away was a hole where a rocket had landed. Rags, tarpaulin, twisted sheets of metal littered the streets. Vietnamese threaded their way through the debris, but Sherrill stopped to watch old women propping up a house that had been blown down but not obliterated. Other houses, though standing, had been holed by shrapnel and spattered with mud and bits of cloth. The smell of earth, fouled by centuries of habitation mingled with the odor of drying blood. Flies buzzed. Sherrill saw a matted bloody thing that he thought was a rocket-blasted rat but might have been the scalp of a small child."

We go deep into the steaming jungle where he eloquently and vividly describes the horrors of war, death and the palpable fears of the fighting soldier.

"They climbed over bomb craters and shattered trees. Bits of cloth and strips of flesh hung from branches. They lay under trees that dripped gore while a half-crazed survivor wandered about, softly reciting what might have been his comrades' names, a song, a prayer. He was young, giddy with fear. A slight, scholarly-looking Marine who seemed too fragile for this world, rose from the ground and with an embrace, killed him with a Ka-Bar, the forlorn boy curling into the knife like a woman into her lover's embrace. The Marine held up a dripping ear to signal his success; his comrades flashed silent smiles. Afterdeath dripped from above."

Flynn examines war, but he also deftly examines the motivations, cynicism and self-serving attitudes of the American war correspondents, too often exploiting the war for their own purposes and gain, seemingly oblivious to the horrors they step over at every turn in an effort to get a "good story."

Flynn's first-hand experience and amazing command of the language combine to make this a great read - highly stylized, deeply thoughtful and outrageously cynical. While one of his earlier works among many, ([...]) this is a compelling book that might change the way you look at war correspondents and war itself.

Robert Flynn's view of the Vietnam war through the eyes of journalist Sherill O'Connell is a scarily good look at war. It is a must for anyone who thought that John Wayne movies accurately portray war, and a must for anyone who ever wondered what the media looks like from within.