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Memoirs about the Vietnam War often contain references to ghosts – a handy euphemism for the sights, smells and experiences that often dog the men who fought America’s morally costly and most unpopular war.
But for former Army Sgt. Paul Murphy, his ghost – Spec. 4 Myron I. “Wanna” Senger – pops in and out of his former squad leader’s life some 40 years after the young specialist was cut down by enemy fire in a nameless hamlet in the lowlands of Vietnam.
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“War Without End, Amen: A Vietnam Story” by Tim Coder $3.99 at amazon.com, approximately 500 pp. (Available only in electronic format) |
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Senger hopes Murphy can explain why he has been forced to “hump” the jungles of Vietnam for the decades since his death.
Murphy has done his best to bury Vietnam in the deep recesses of his mind and soul, and has no answers for Senger. The defenses Murphy has built up over the years to ward off horrific memories of the slow slaughter of his entire squad – only he and his boss, Lt. Adrian “Jackal” Porkorny, survived – has rendered him emotionally crippled.
Senger, visible and audible only to Murphy, shows up in living rooms, a hospital, the backseat of Murphy’s car, commenting on events unfolding in Murphy’s life, but mostly trying to find out how he can leave Vietnam and get back home to North Dakota.
The Jackal’s funeral in Kansas affords Murphy the chance to tell the story of the battle for a forsaken hill on the cusp of Vietnam’s infamous A Shau Valley and the dayslong slaughter of his squad. The telling, predictably, proves cathartic for Murphy and the people he and the Jackal have allowed into their lives since their days in “the ‘Nam” – even for the hapless Wanna.
Tim Coder’s exacting description of the squad’s missions – from their disastrous final firefight to the failed attempt to relieve Wanna of his virginity – was clearly forged when he served as an infantry squad leader in the 101st Airborne Division.
Coder’s approach of having a ghost as an active participant in Murphy’s collision with his past shows us opposing sides of a war that cost more than 58,000 American lives.
Far more than the gritty retelling of a motley squad’s experiences in an endlessly puzzling war, “War Without End, Amen,” puts the personal aftermath of Vietnam in our living rooms, our hospitals, the backseats of our cars.
The grunts who fought in Vietnam often summarized what went on there with, “It don’t mean nothin’.” In the context of Iraq and Afghanistan which, like Vietnam, are drawing to uncertain conclusions, Coder’s well-crafted book challenges us to decide whether the grunts are right. Coder is a retired Journal editor.
Charles Brunt covers military affairs for the Journal.
