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War Story: The Classic True Story of the First Generation of Green Berets

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Published only four years after the fall of Saigon, War Story, was the first of what has become a plethora of non-fiction Vietnam War memoirs. But because of the political climate at the time of its initial publication this potential blockbuster bestseller was all but ignored by the New York publishing houses. While Robin Moore's The Green Berets was such a sensation in 1965 that it inspired a John Wayne movie, and the same photo of Army Special Forces Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler would grace both the book's paperback cover and Sadler's top hit record, by the early 1970's when Morris wrote War Story the attitude towards the Vietnam War and America's elite warriors was colored by the anti-war movement, My Lai, the bombing of Cambodia, and the media's slanted reporting on Tet. Vietnam wasn't a popular literary topic.

Morris begins his memoir with the emotionally charged details of his re-occurring nightmare, a vivid and detailed replay of the firefight in which he had his left testicle shot off and was almost killed. In the nightmare though he is eventually killed. He ends the book with an emotionally charged memory also. In a heart-tugging coda, Morris recounts the scene. While standing in an Army hospital, his crippled right arm hanging at his side, his useless fingers attached to a mechanical brace he watches as the sun sets and the color guard lowers the flag; and tells us that as the flag is lowered "a feeling of almost overwhelming sadness, almost grief, came over me." As Morris attempts to salute the colors with his damaged right hand he stands "crying like a baby because I couldn't do it right."

A professional soldier who began military school as an eleven-year-old, Morris joined the Army and Special Forces where he rose to the rank of major. He volunteered for three tours in Vietnam and received four Purple Hearts and four Bronze Stars among numerous other decorations before a medical discharge for wounds cut his career short.

Jim Morris is a gifted story-teller and this book should be read for his Ludwig Faistenhammer and Larry Dring war stories alone. But at its heart War Story is the tale of Jim Morris, not an examination of the Vietnam War or even the role of Special Forces. It is, admittedly, a participant's interpretation of events. He offers up a good account of what it was like to be on the ground during the Montagnard revolt, to fight for survival during the Tet Offensive in Nha Trang, and to serve in the US Army's Special Forces during its hey-day in Vietnam. Summing up his Vietnam experience Morris quotes Michael Herr's Dispatches, "Vietnam was what we had instead of happy childhoods."

This is a book by a soldier who is proud of his service, an experienced and consummate warrior who without a second thought or any moral retrospection whatsoever begs God to please send him some VC to kill for his birthday. But Morris is a thinking man's warrior (he opens his book sections with quotes from the works of Carlos Castaneda) and philosophizes about other men like himself: "I think perhaps Special Forces guys and other people like them have depressed metabolisms and they have to be exposed to some sort of danger to feel normal ... before going to Nam I didn't know that everyone wasn't paralyzed by boredom all the time."

Paralyzed with boredom is the last thing you'll be while reading War Story, a real standout amongst the burgeoning pile of popular literature on the Vietnam war. Morris' prose is oftentimes humorous, always entertaining, and never boring, self-serving, or pedantic. A good example of his dry wit is how he describes his arrival at Ta Ko to take command of the Special Forces camp where "...the Strike Force had been for two years without going home or seeing a woman. Half of them had long hair and half of them had short hair and they were all real friendly with each other. But not with Americans. Every so often somebody threw a grenade into the team house." War Story is replete with a soldier's black humor on death and killing. One of the best lines in the book is: "I won't describe the operation because it was one of the most frustrating experiences of my military career, a compendium of tactical errors and blown chances grotesque enough to break the heart of anybody who likes to kill people."

But Vietnam wasn't all fun and games for Jim Morris. The loss he suffered, besides his physical and emotional wounds, includes the deaths of comrades and close Army friends in the close and brutal combat which marked Special Forces operations in Vietnam. Special Forces was a close community and the death of a "green beret" meant a personal loss. He agonizes over the fate of, Phillipe Drouin, one of his Montagnard comrades and a leader of FULRO, the Montagnard independence movement, who was a kindred spirit and Morris' close friend. Despite the disparity of the two cultures Morris formed a deep and long lasting attachment to the Montagnards during his three tours in Vietnam and was well connected to FULRO. While on an operation with the "Yards" at the end of his third tour, though suffering a life-threatening wound, he refused medical evacuation and proceeded to supervise the evacuation of his wounded Montagnards. His dedication to the Montagnard cause provided him with his paradigm for perfect happiness. "Get involved in something that is more important to you than your own life."
Special Forces' most ardent White House supporter, President John F. Kennedy, said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Professional SF soldiers like Morris answered that call to duty and War Story gives us a glimpse of what our country asked of some of its young men and what they gave. For some it was too much. Others, like Morris, are still measuring the cost.

Rob Krott, author of Save the Last Bullet for Yourself
(Foreword by Jim Morris)
SAVE THE LAST BULLET FOR YOURSELF: A Soldier of Fortune in the Balkans and Somalia

I was in Vietnam as a reporter in 1964. Among other stunts, I hooked up with a Special Forces A Team based at Cheo Reo in the Central Highlands. (You can read about them in "Incident at Muc Wa".) Jim Morris was in the team that replaced these guys a few months later, and he inherited their interpreter, a handsome Montagnard called Cowboy, who unbeknownst to the Americans was a leading figure in an independence movement called Fulro, for Liberation of Oppressed Races.

Morris tells his own story--the American story--of his multiple tours as a Green Beret in Vietnam. But running through it is the parallel story of Cowboy, who becomes a warlord in his own right--a sort of "fourth force" in this many-pronged war whose major participants were the South Vietnamese, the North Vietnamese, and the Americans. Cowboy worked for the Americans, plotted for the Montagnard, and may well have been murdered by the South Vietnamese.

I just discovered this book last year, when it was recommended to me by one of the Green Berets I'd known in 1964. I'm delighted to see that it's back in print. It belongs on the shelf of any student of the Vietnam war.

From a literary standpoint, War Story is very disjointed and rambling. Side bars are frequent and often pointless. The book starts out with the author arriving in Nam for his second tour, then goes into a flashback of the first tour that lasts a third of the book, without telling what's going on. There are very few dates and no maps. There is not near as much action as most of the popular Viet Nam books, and the story is largely one of the author's frustration at not being allowed to command a combat team for more than a couple operations. The book may be of value for its unique content about Montagnard advisors before regular troops arrived, and the author certainly speaks from the heart.

Morris' book is first-rate. Although somewhat dated in the sense of who SF are today, this piece offers unique first-person accounts of what Vietnam was like. I felt the best parts of the book were his philosophical ruminations of policy, the truisms of counter-revolutionary war, etc. Specifically, he hit a bullseye with why we lost. I derive many similarities from his book to the situation brewing in Colombia (without the Cold War spin). Its a great primer for Vietnam readers and all those interested in SF. Only two areas that I felt were lacking: not enough background material to make the reader connect with the situation or "time-space" in the book, and his style was somewhat erratic. I don't remeber coming accross any dates for a couple hundred pages. From a military historian perspective, it lacked clarity and seemed to drift into "free-thought" of his experiences. However, I thought he provided excellent narratives of his bravery and heroism.

This is THE book to read if you were never involved with Special Forces and wonder what it is like to be in SF. This is also the book to read if you WERE in SF in SE Asia and you find it hard to find books that relate people and events in a meaningful way to your own experiences, a clearer perspective than when we lived them. Besides all that, War Story a great read. Like candy or whatever you like best, a real treat page turner.

This book is excellent. The only tactical problem I have with it is his constant discussion of smoking while in the field. I have read this book several times over the last 15 or so years. It is a great book. Smoking in the field can get you killed. I am hoping he added this for dramatic appeal. I feel his ideas for counter insurgency are right on. This book should be read by any Q course or assesment wanna be. One of his greatist ideas is utilizing graphics of infiltration routes via contact locations to create good graphics of where to place ATeam camps. I thought this was brilliant. I am hoping the Army has solved this through the implementation of all the graphics they do in their preparation of the order of battle that is done in their planning cycles.

War Story was one of the first personal narratives to come out of the Vietnam War, and the first one I read. I have read many Vietnam "War Stories" since then, and this withstands the test of time. Morris has a gift for story telling. When he is describing places and events I am there with him... and unseen, unmentioned member of his team. It is easy to feel despair when the team faces hardship (more often at the hands of American bureaucracy than the Communists.) It is easy to feel good when they achieve. This book tells the story of the early advisory effort in Vietnam, there is not a lot of combat and "shoot-em-up." It also follows the escalation, to which Morris was more of an observer than a participant. You are not going to get the image that everyone has of the conflict from this book. You will hear the story of well trained and dedicated volunteers doing a necessary job under very difficult circumstances.

My only complaint would be the lack of maps and details of time line. In many ways the book is disjointed. This helps the narrative, but makes it hard for anyone who is really trying to learn about the war. This might not be as important to some, but I am a serious student of this period in the conflict. I find the book much more understandable years later having a lot more grounding in the background.

I realize that for the last ten or fifteen years, there has been a flood of Vietnam War-related memoirs. However, Jim Morris' WAR STORY is an historical account you do not want to miss. In the early years of Vietnam, the author was an Army Special Forces Captain and advisor to both the South Vietnamese army an the indigenous Montagnards. WAR STORY chronicles Morris' adventures--some rather precarious--with these two groups. The battle scenes are vivid, and perfectly capture the chaos of a running gun fight in a jungle. What is best about WAR STORY, however, is Morris' ability to study himself, his comrades, and the war, without flinching. Part of this is due to the author's training as a journalist; also because the book was written in 1979, while the war was still fresh. All in all, this book will show you what it was like to be a soldier in the early days of the Vietnam War, when victory was still attainable.

WAR STORY by Jim Morris is one of those books you have to have in your collection of war stories. Toss out one of mine or somebody else's because with Morris you get quite simply one of the finest books on the war in Vietnam there is! ... I'm so ... jealous I even stole a few of his verbs!

Absolutely one of the finest books ever written about the Vietnam War and the men who fought it. Kudos to Morris!