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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Vital historical sketch,
By A Customer
This review is from: The flower of the dragon;: The breakdown of the U.S. Army in Vietnam (Hardcover)
It is rather a pity that the only time most of us have heard of this book is when John Belushi slurs at James Woods "Flower of the Dragon...that was ten years ago Boyle!" Indeed, if Boyle is to be remembered for the 1985 Oliver Stone Movie Salvador, it ought to be noted his "scoops" prior to 1980-1, are probably more important. Being holed up in the French embassy in Phnom Penh in April-may 1975 with 1100 refugees, he saw the Khmer Rouge empty the city. His dispatches, in which he took issue with the usual "communist attrocity" hysteria, which was wrongly taken as fellow travelling with the KR. He simply pointed out that terrible though the excesses of the regime were, reportage from inside Cambodia (often slanted or just erroneous) was always selective when it came to goods guys v. bad guys. In Flower of the Dragon, he follows the course of many Americans of his generation, born into post-war affluence and weaned on the rhetoric of John Wayne and JFK. Boyle went to Saigon in 1965 and was convinced this was a necessary war. Returning in 1969, he found that the military and political situation had detoriated sharply. Just after the disasterous Tet offensive,the American Green machine was actually making battlefield progress. But behind the scenes, there was chronic drug addiction in the forces, demoralisation and "fragging", wherein, officers were assasinated by recalcitrant underlings. Moreover, the flipside to the "Peace With Honour" rhetoric of Nixon was the secret illegal bombings of Laos and Cambodia. Boyle's contribution was to humanise the soldiers he met, allowing them to tell it like it was. Often they were as much the victims of the American government's assault on Vietnam as the civillians. The book also contained snippets of hope alongside the horror. Most notably was the voyage by boat into the River Mekong Delta to the island of Con Phung (Cocounut Island). This was where a small community had established a neutral zone, based on the amalgamation of all cultures. Under the leadership of the aged Ong Dao Dua, it was a place where peace was a central doctrine. As places such as Bu Prang and during the Revolt of Alpha Company in 1969, it was clear to see that the Vietnam veterans who had been politicised by their experience were a vital cataylst. If Algeria led to the end of the Fourth Republic in France, Vietnam was to reshape the political topography of the United States,
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