About book Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War In Vietnam (2013)
Turse presents overwhelming evidence that the United States, its political and military leaders, as well as a very large number of individual soldiers, were guilty of war crimes in Vietnam. The recounting of many individual criminal acts is horrifying and even more so is the recounting of the planning and implementation of a "system of suffering" that resulted in more than 2,000,000 civilian dead, more than 5,000,000 civilian wounded, and more than 11,000,000 refugees. Much of this in a South Vietnam population of less than 20,000,000. (The population of the whole country, north and south was at the time about 44,000,000.)I think it's important that we remember what was done in our name. But lessons learned by us as a nation? Apparently none. A very hard book to get through. It did alter the way I view the Vietnam War, even as an American Studies student who has read and studied it a great deal, and I appreciate that very much. I feel the new information only enhances my understanding. I also applaud what Nick Turse uncovered and all the research he accomplished. However, I got the sense that he felt the need to speak for every single atrocity that happened over the course of the war. The first 3/4 of the book was just him listing off massacres and places where Vietnamese were tortured. And while it does reflect just how common these practices were and made you understand the enormity of the situation, it was draining, repetitive, and impossible to follow every hamlet and every person he mentioned.Despite that, if you are a Vietnam buff like myself, I definitely recommend this book. It really added valuable information and depth to what I learned in school, even if I would never choose to struggle through it again.
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Patron Review:Eye-opening; should be required reading in American History!
—Brayden
Good pace. Well researched book. I really liked it
—Cheyenne
