Dawson's War (i)

from novelist B.K. Marshall and the Studies and Observations Group

I recommend earnestly to you a 2021 novel set among the Studies and Observations Group of the United States Army Special Forces who with Hmong partisans scouted the route of supply from the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam through the Kingdom of Laos to their war to defeat the Republic of Viet Nam.

It is the smartest novel I have read from the war between Ha Noi and Saigon, surely a personal judgement. An objective way to say it is that if you too read that literature in English, French, and Vietnamese with a sense of the national history of the region and its empires and their subject peoples and offshore allies you also may find that the new book does not contradict anything you know to be the case, and teaches you something.

I have written a lengthy review of Dawson's War: a Novel of Friendship Under Fire to publish later. For now, may I urge you to see for yourself what I mean about the intelligence of this work and the moral fiber it conveys of the author, his characters, and the world he drew them from in memory.

This was the first Viet Nam letter of 8 so far addressed to Dawson’s War by B.K. Marshall. The second posted on February 26, 2022, the third on March 16, 2022, the fourth on April 13, 2022, the fifth on May 16, 2022, the sixth on June 18, 2022, the seventh on February 25, 2023, and the eighth on June 28, 2023.

Other posts from the United States Special Forces include 3 on their Vietnamese Phrase Book. We have posted 4 on the work of Loyd Little and 3 on Nick Brokhausen and 2 on Alan Farrell and 1 on William P. Yarborough.

Viet Nam letters respects the property of others under paragraph 107 of United States Code Title 17. If we asked for permission it wouldn’t be criticism. We explain our fair use at length in the letter of September 12, 2022.

The colophon of these Viet Nam letters, directly above, shows the janitor speaking with poet David A. Willson on a Veterans Day.