Once upon a distant war PDF
Preview Once upon a distant war
I1ARIN COUNTY FREE LIBRARY 31111015353079 Distant Young War Correspondents William Prochnau FPT A. $27.50 ..ada $38.50 In the beginning itwas such a nice littlewar. No sense ofimpendingdisasterhungoverVietnam in 1961, no hint ofan Apocalypse Now future that would sear the American psyche for a generation.With only a fewAmer- ican advisers on hand and a handful ofwar correspondents to send the news home as the military force slowly grew larger, Saigon remained a steamy Oriental backwater of dark intrigue and mesmerizing romance. Buddhist monks in saffron robes moved quietly through a babble ofHindu moneychangers.Women ofexotic Asian beauty glided by in silkenao dais.Expatriate Chinesewith three-strandbeards andopaque eyes introducedvisitors to the ancientpleasures — ofthe poppy.Vietnam captivated the firstAmericans the military men, the self-certain civilians, and the war corre- spondents too. Captivated them like aVenus flytrap. In Once Upon a Distant War William Prochnau vividly brings to life the adventures ofthe small group ofyoung, audacious, and driven war correspondents who first put Vietnam onAmerica's doorstep.With the lyrical, evocative writing ofa novelist and the experienced eye ofa prize- winningjournalist,Prochnau brings back an almost forgot- — ten time and place before the earth was crateredbyB-52s and scorched by search-and-destroy missions. Prochnau draws the characters powerfully, telling their story in the high drama oftwo years ofliving dangerously as the correspondents are shot at in the field, beaten in the streets, and threatened with assassination.Their own government denounces them as communists and traitors, too young to know any better. So do many oftheir older colleagues.Their editors doubt them and try to rein them in.Instead,they become legends,the vanguard ofthe rebel- lious, unruly modern media oftoday. Among their ranks: David Halberstam, TheNewYorkTimes's"brilliantbrat," determined at age twenty-eight to loom the largest,writing both the history and myth ofhis time,a man whose angers silenced Saigon bistros with table-pounding demands that the U.S.commanding general be court-martialed and shot. Neil Sheehan,twenty-five and green as grass,the"kid" everybody liked,driven by private haunts and his own deep need for a truth impossible to find.Vietnam would diginto him like an angry wood tick and hang on for decades. Malcolm Browne, the eccentric loner who wore red socks and a death's head ring into battle. His world-famous photo ofa flaming Buddhists protest s>,; hanged the story forever. (con;- :k flap) CENTER CIVIC ll\tf 01535 3079 3 11 11 DATE DUE -^^/4- ffiC 2 fi 1995 cr-g 2\n */l/l^ JAM) MARION FEB U 3 199( S Mil t£9gf^ iw; TER 7 1 _ cec--7A£r mar 8 iyy6 i w MB y/*v* 5 199S im 6 199 Lftnj_ i. ij _ 1 HZZEHHZr ^ JUN 2 1 199 JUU & 09 1 NOV 5 199D VO' Also by William Prochnau A Certain Democrat (coauthor) Trinity's Child, a novel Once Upon a Distant War Once Upon War a Distant William Prochnau m T I E 8 O O K 8 R A N D O O U S E Copyright © 1995byWilliamProchnau All rights reserved underInternationaland Pan-AmericanCopyright Conventions. Published in the United StatesbyTimes Books, a division of RandomHouse, Inc.,NewYork, and simultaneouslyinCanadabyRandom HouseofCanada Limited, Toronto. Anexcerptfromthisbookappeared in VanityFair. Portions ofearlierdrafts alsoappeared in TheNew YorkTimesMagazine, The Washington PostMagazine, theAPTReporteroftheAlicia Patterson Foundation,and the Gannett CenterJournal LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Prochnau,WilliamW. Onceupon adistantwar / WilliamProchnau. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN0-8129-2633-1 1. VietnameseConflict, 1961-1975—United States. 2. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975—Press coverage. 3. Sheehan, Neil. 4. Halberstam, David. 5. Browne, MalcolmW. 6. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975—Journalists. I. Title. DS558.P75 1995 959.704'3373—dc20 95-7327 Manufact2ure4d i6n t8heU9ni7ted5Sta3tes1ofAmerica First Edition BookdesignbySusan Hood
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