Customer Reviews

NAM: The Vietnam War in the Words of the Men and Women Who Fought There

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I met a Vietnam Vet my junior year in high school, he was missing an arm and one of his eyes. The movie Platoon had just come out. When asked if the events in Platoon really happened, his answer has stuck with me to this day. He said, "I believe that everything depicted in the movie was pretty accurate to events that did in fact occur. The only difference is that I don't believe it could have all happened to the same group of men." He then went on to say that the night the "Deer Hunter" played on national television, hundreds of Vietnam Vets committed suicide. It was his opinion that when Platoon eventually played on TV, it would be double.

Years later when I read "Nam" by Mark Baker, those words were with me. Did these stories really happen? I'm sure there are inaccuracies, but these are those who were there. Is there anyone who can stand up and say they didn't happen? It's unfortunate that we can't ask those who ended their lives after seeing a movie that was to some also fiction. Would they say these stories are untrue? If you are like me, you take their word for it and you have no choice but to be filled with a dozen different emotions, the majority of which are nothing close to joyous.

If you have any interest in what Vietnam was about to the individuals who served, you really should read this book. Here you will not hear about politics, or the impact of the television on public opinion. You won't get sound bites from presidents or celebrities. What you will get is a few hours spent with men and women who had to live in that place day after day. You will find that it wasn't always bombs and bullets they feared, but the very ticking of the clock itself. The incessant monotony that lulled them to sleep would then awake them with blinding flashes of their own deaths.

Some of these stories you will never be able to forget, nor should you. This is an event we would do well to remember in all its horrible detail. "Nam" goes a long way to ensure that forgetting is something we will never be able to do.

War is hell. To this end, author Mark Baker collects a vast series of comments from many of the brave men and women who answered the nation's call to duty. In doing so, Baker captures the terrible bloodshed of the Vietnam war.

The only negative factor of this book is that Baker is not a veteran. He is a journalist who did not serve in Vietnam. Consequently, a few of his snapshots are open to question. They certainly make for good copy but as a two tour USMC Vietnam vet I offer with absolute certainty that some parts of this book do not ring true.

Nevertheless, this is an important book. Baker reaches out to vets and allows them to bare their soul. Some sections of this book are horrible. Others reflect well on the quality of the American fighting man. All in all, any young kid who foolishly thinks war is glorious and that the battlefield is a place of honor should read this book. It will probably save his or her life.

I read this book about ten years ago. I bought a paperback in a drugstore and read it several times over before retiring it to the book shelf. I just researched it here to find out if it is still in print. Too bad that it's not. I WOULD recommend this book to anyone wanting to read about the REAL Vietnam. Well worth special ordering. This book is better than any movie or novel about Vietnam that I have ever read. It helped me have a better understanding of Vietnam Vets and what they endured. At nearly 30 years now since Vietnam, this book should be among the textbooks for US History. Lots of violence and adult language, but history is history. Report it like it was, then we can learn from our mistakes. GREAT BOOK!

From the books I've read on Vietnam, this is second only to 'Dispatches' by Michael Herr. This book was one I could not put down. Really gives you a feel for what it was like to be there - because it's all told by those who were there. Some tragic parts, some amusing, definitely highly recommended for anyone with an interest in the subject

As a child, my grandfather often talked about WWII. It was often taught to elementary school children like me. But none of my teachers would ever discuss the Vietnam War. As a child, I was very curious. So I bought this book in Phoenix in 1982. I read it and was horrified by war. But it reflects a history that was often hidden at the time. It seems that the Vietnam War was often shrouded in resentment throughout much of the 1970s and early 1980s. But after the Vietnam War Memorial was dedicated (with survivors such as POW Alvarez and General Westmoreland), it became more open for discussion. This book is perfect for reading about the soldier's perspectives from the front line. It is also very harsh in it's description with real heartbreak in many of the stories. But it is highly educational for those who did not experience the war and are from a younger generation.

This book was a great!
I can't say I enjoyed reading it though because a lot of the things mentioned in this book are horrifying, e.g. 'But the guy who tried to kill me was still alive and they peeled him like you'd peel an apple...' you just don't enjoy reading about this kind of thing unless your wierd!

Once i started reading it though I just couldn't put it down, I cried, I smiled and I felt guilty at one point. The horror the men and women had to suffer, was trying to be covered up by the government and pictured by the media as 'U.S. G.I.'s kill thousands of innocent vietnamese'.
I feel sorry for one man imparticular in the book who saw his friends get blown away by a shoeshine boy, this was terrible!
I liked this book though because it was not a boring book where the author goes around asking people of a high rank what they thought of the war he went and asked the normal everyday G.I.'s.
Everybody who has a chance to buy or loan this book should, it is marvellous!!

I read this a few years ago and can still remember passages from the various stories. This is a powerful book that illustrates what the soldiers that fought for our Country went through.

The best literature out of the Vietnam War may have been its "oral histories." This book was one of them, ranked in the top five by 200 Vietnam vets interviewed. NAM's down-and-dirty neighbordhood voices mesmerize and haunt long after. The other four? EVERYTHING WE HAD, CASUALTIES, BLOODS and A PIECE OF MY HEART

Baker has put together a collection of sensational comments and stories that may or may not be true. Most of them seem to be accounts by people who had shaky moral compasses to begin with, put in situations where they could freefall to degeneracy without restraint. Although the outrageous behavior described may have occurred at times, it was by no means normal, accepted or encouraged by professional soldiers. Reckless murder and mayhem described in this book would not be tolerated or go unpunished as a rule. There was a special place in Vietnam for outlaws when they were caught called "LBJ" -- Long Binh Jail. It seems to me that Baker picked the worst offenders he could find just to sell a book. To make readers think this was the "real" Vietnam during the war and not a collection of isolated events -- presuming they are even true -- does a disservice to readers and to the 99.9% of the three million men and women who served honorably, with dignity and humanity under the most difficult circumstances in Vietnam. And yes, I am a Vietnam veteran.

Twenty years ago I bought this book while serving my country in the US Air Force. This book contains the words of the vets who served in the "Nam" and the experiences they faced each day whether it was humorous, serious, happy or sad. Mark Baker would definitely get five stars for compiling the words of the GI who relays his or her own experiences of the Vietnam War as it happened. As a veteran myself, though too young to have served in Vietnam that ended just five years prior to when I joined the service, we're all brethren. Whether we served in both World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom, Afghanistan, and even during peacetime like I did, we're like brothers and sisters. For the Nam vets who have helped make this book possible, I thank you for serving this great country.