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A Rumor of War 
| 100% Recommended by our customers. Publisher: Holt Paperbacks Catalog: Book Release date: 1996-11-15 Media: Paperback Number of pages: 356 Ean: 9780805046953 Book Isbn: 080504695X  Tip: compare prices with similar booksAuthor:
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| Professional Review: |
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When it first appeared, A Rumor of War brought home to American readers, with terrifying vividness and honesty, the devastating effects of the Vietnam War on the soldiers who fought there. And while it is a memoir of one young man’s experiences and therefore deeply personal, it is also a book that speaks powerfully to today’s students about the larger themes of human conscience, good and evil, and the desperate extremes men are forced to confront in any war. A platoon commander in the first combat unit sent to fight in Vietnam, Lieutenant Caputo landed at Danang on March 8, 1965, convinced that American forces would win a quick and decisive victory over the Communists. Sixteen months later and without ceremony, Caputo left Vietnam a shell-shocked veteran whose youthful idealism and faith in the rightness of the war had been utterly shattered. A Rumor of War tells the story of that trajectory and allows us to see and feel the reality of the conflict as the author himself experienced it, from the weeks of tedium hacking through scorching jungles, to the sudden violence of ambushes and firefights, to the unbreakable bonds of friendship forged between soldiers, and finally to a sense of the war as having no purpose other than the fight for survival. The author gives us a precise, tactile view of both the emotional and physical reality of war. When Caputo is reassigned to headquarters as “Officer in Charge of the Dead,” he chronicles the psychological cost of witnessing and recording the human toll of the war. And after his voluntary transfer to the frontlines, Caputo shows us that the major weapons of guerrilla fighting are booby traps and land mines, and that success is measured not in feet but in body counts. Nor does the author shrink from admitting the intoxicating intensity of combat, an experience so compelling that many soldiers felt nostalgic for it years after they’d left Vietnam. Most troubling, Caputo gives us an unflinching view not only of remarkable bravery and heroism but also of the atrocities committed in Vietnam by ordinary men so numbed by fear and desperate to survive that their moral distinctions had collapsed. More than a statement against war, Caputo’s memoir offers readers today a profoundly visceral sense of what war is and, as the author says, of “the things men do in war and the things war does to men.” This edition includes a twentieth-anniversary postscript by the author. |
| User Reviews: |
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Written on February 24, 2008 Summary: Excellent! I was very impressed with the order of A Rumor of War. The book shipped quickly and arrived between the 7-14 day window. The service was professional. The book details matched the quality of the book. I am very pleased with the service provided. Written on December 15, 2007 Summary: If not the best, what IS the best experience of Vietnam? Caputo's book doesn't need another review. I will offer mine anyway, if nothing else to contrast it with Wolff's "In Pharoah's Army," an inferior book. First, I wish I could have written "A Rumor of War." I wasn't ready to write about the war soon after I returned from Vietnam, in 1967. Not even after a couple years of college in 1971, when I camped on the mall with 1,200 other Vietnam Vets Against the War (including John Kerry). Caputo had the advantage of education on me. Not just that, I needed a lot more time to experience other things and gain a broader perspective. But he made it all perfectly clear when he had a dialogue in the officer's mess with the chaplain and the doctor, "The chaplain's morally superior attitude had rankled me, but his sermon had managed to plant doubt in my mind, doubt about the war. Much of what he had said made sense: our tactical operations did seem futile and directed toward no apparent end. . . . Twelve wrecked homes. The chaplain's words echoed. That's twelve wrecked homes. The doctor and I think in terms of human suffering, not statistics." AND THIS WAS IN 1965, before things really got going in Vietnam. If you want to know what the BS about body counts was--that ended up in a lawsuit by General Westmoreland against Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes, if you want to know what Vietnam was like because you are too young to have learned about it during that time in America and the world's history, read this book. If you want to know how it relates to more recent events, try my own memoir, Waiting for Westmoreland, that finally came out so many years later. Written on October 20, 2007 Summary: Best Literature onThe Viet Nam War Pulitzer Price winner Philip Caputo held me on the edge of my seat with his autobiographical experience as a young marine lieutenant in the first year of the US major troop deployment period. I, as a 21 year old enlisted man, was also was part of that initial troop operation with the 1st Infantry Division just north of Saigon. We arrived full of excitement not knowing what we were about to encounter. I still find it hard to explain the experience of unanticipated paralyzing fear, an environment of massive infrastructure development in the middle of a rubber plantations and mountain jungle, new deadly weapons design to counter our initial losses, the anything goes in Saigon, snakes and tigers, indiscriminate death and the general behavior of kids that had been raised with upper middle class values that simply didn't hold up when exposed the emotional sensationalism of this conflict. Caputo does the best job describing that environment and the related evolving behavior that became part of the daily experience. As you approach the end of the novel with stimulated enlightenment he drops the bomb. Along side of "Making of a Quagmire" by another Pulitzer Prize winner, David Halberstan and "We were Soldiers Once ....And Young", Harold G. Moore, readers will share the true history of the journey through moral decadence to which no participant was exempt. The three best (in my opinion as a Viet Nam Veteran) pieces of literature written on the Viet Nam War. They are, as writers, truly artist. Written on October 7, 2007 Summary: I absolutely recommend this book! I've been wanting to read first-hand accounts of the Vietnam war for some time and have finally read several books within the last few months; "A Rumor of War", "Dispatches", "Vietnam/Perkasie" and "Letters from Vietnam." Standing above all is Philip Caputo's incredibly vivid "A Rumor of War." It's everything the other reviewers have said. But do try to read the other books too because it's facinating to read the differences and similarities between them and also gives a better, more rounded picture than any one work can paint. Right now I'm reading "Fields of Fire" which so far is terrific as well.  Written on September 11, 2007 Summary: Tasting the War Inside Your Mouth Caputo's first and most famous work "A Rumor of War" is a testimonial of his experiences as a 2nd lieutenant Marine serving in Vietnam in 1965. On the surface, this book will remind you of so many other testimonials. War is hell, war is bad. Caputo's version of events are so descriptively described, you can taste the dirt of Vietnam in your mouth, feel the grime on your skin and see the fog of what was one of America's worst mistakes. To get a good picture of what war is like and what it does to the human psyche, there is no better portrayal than what Caputo writes. You watch him turn from a gung-ho Marine being sent to protect a base from the VC, and maybe kill a few in the process, to a person so cynical, he orders his men to kill Vietnamese civilians and burn villages indiscriminately. The atrocities he and others committed were so great, you would expect him still serving a sentence in prison for his crimes. This is until you are reminded that this is a war, and that the hand of the US interests pushed him to insanity. I thought this book was an incredible read for anyone who wants a discriptive, hands-on look on the effects of war. Captuo is not a hero in this book, and even more so, I can't help but think that he profits off the innocent he killed. It affects me so much, I don't feel that a perfect score on this novel does those who were characters any justice for their deaths. That is the underlying irony in a book about a "splendid little war" that was only considered an authorized use of force by an executive order. This book plays so well into modern day politics and current events, there isn't any reason why "Rumor of War" should be tossed aside as irrelevant. So many similiarities in his tale sing to the tune of Americans serving in Iraq today. Anyone who is willing to delve into this novel will clearly see the picture, and taste the bitterness of it all. |
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 A Rumor of War |
 Dispatches |
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 The Killing Zone: My Life in the Vietnam War |
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| Our price | $10.88 | $11.16 | $10.17 | $12.10 | $33.97 | $10.20 |
| List price | $16.00 | $13.95 | $14.95 | $13.95 | - | $15.00 |
| Lowest used price | $6.44 | $5.70 | $4.95 | $7.42 | $24.15 | $7.90 |
| Lowest new price | $8.00 | $7.88 | $7.00 | $8.98 | $33.16 | $8.56 |
| Collectible price | $14.78 | - | $14.95 | - | - | - |
| Catalog | Book | Book | Book | Book | Book | Book |
| Release date | 1996-11-15 | 1991-08-06 | 1998-12-29 | 1993-11-01 | 2001-11-15 | 2004-02-03 |
| Media | Paperback | Paperback | Paperback | Paperback | Paperback | Paperback |
| Number of pages | 356 | 272 | 272 | 240 | 384 | 432 |
| Ean | 9780805046953 | 9780679735250 | 9780767902892 | 9780393310894 | 9780072536188 | 9780385337816 |
| Book Isbn | 080504695X | 0679735259 | 0767902890 | 0393310892 | 0072536187 | 0385337817 |
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