[Reviewed from advance galley: I did not see the notes, photos, maps, or index.]
The product description supplied by the publisher to Amazon does not begin to do justice to this marvelous new entry on the shockingly misunderstood war in Vietnam. Ride the Thunder is not a traditional single-volume history of the long and very complex combat-diplo-war in Southeast Asia. Instead, author Richard Botkin (a former United States Marine Corps infantry officer) carves off an important slice of the story, packing and filling around the edges to provide a contextual telling of the events in toto.
Botkin's tale centers on the little-told and virtually unknown story of a handful of American and Vietnamese Marines who fought against horrendous odds and arguably WON the war by stopping a brutal 1972 invasion by North Vietnam (known as the Easter Offensive). These same brave souls lived to watch diplomats and politicians insert the surrender rug beneath their feet, yank it out, and knock down the victorious edifice earned by the blood of tens of thousands of men and women (including 50,000+ young Americans).
Central to the plot are a few individuals and their daring exploits, chief among them Capt. John Ripley (whose jaw-dropping raid to blow up the Dong Ha bridge is told here better than anywhere else I have ever read); Maj. Le Ba Binh (a South Vietnamese Marine whose men fought off and beat back more than 20 times their number), and Lt. Col. Gerry Turley (whose strategic and tactical leadership and personal courage helped stave off what looked to be certain defeat, and then turn it into a victory). By the time you finish this book, you will know these men, their families (in most cases), and their hearts.
"Everything Americans know about the end of the Vietnam War is wrong," claimed the author in a publicly available interview. "From the American side, I think most people have a completely uninformed or misinformed opinion of the Vietnam War. Most Americans, including people who served in Vietnam, didn't appreciate the level of sacrifice of the South Vietnamese. These people love freedom." Indeed this is true. Very few in the West--even at this late date--appreciate what took place there, especially during the war's latter years. As Botkin documents, the Communists (NVA) routinely and intentionally used artillery fire to kill thousands of helpless civilians (including the young the old, and the sick). "They would even place high-value targets near civilian centers." If you pay attention to modern events, the similarity to tactics employed by Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda will come to mind. Politicians, including Ted Kennedy, promised one thing and then cut off support, guaranteeing that millions of people in South Vietnam would endure a life of misery, near-slavery, and mass butchery. This backstabbing effort, developed inside Washington, D.C., also ensured that Pol Pot would have free rein to fertilize the killing fields of Cambodia with the blood of millions of his own citizens.
Why, then, were we in the America fed lies of the worse kind? "The communists were masters at using propaganda against us," Botkin explains. Freedom-seeking Vietnamese endured untold pain and suffering unimaginable to most Americans while Communists released propaganda lapped up by Western critics of the war. Communist = Good, American military = Bad. The obvious lies spun from salons in Hanoi (and even inside our own Capitol Building) fit the media-spun meme of the times. The parallel to what is transpiring now in Honduras is palpable. There was no military coup there, but the media insist otherwise, and average Americans are duped in the process. It is as disgusting today as it was in the 1960s-70s. And just as dangerous.
Ride the Thunder is fresh in every respect, well-written, and often thrilling. Most of it you have never read before. The final pages detailing the years of untold suffering endured by Maj. Le Ba Binh and his family are heart wrenching (and among the best in the book). I heartily recommend Botkin's book as an antidote to the monographs and storylines heretofore offered up as truth.
