Soldiers of Misfortune

 “Lieutenant Dangerous – A Vietnam War Memoir” by Jeff Danziger, 2021

SNAFU – Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.  You bet, Yossarian.  Catch .223 or drop a 105 Howitzer from a Huey.  “War is interesting if you can avoid getting killed and don’t mind loud noises.”  Follow this “soldier of misfortune” as he loudly choppers into LZs, badly learns and forgets Vietnamese; gets assigned to replace Howitzer barrels; hides in an air-conditioned tin computer hut, gives away supplies to the ARVN, takes on surreal tasks and tries to complain. 

“Sorry Sir, this is my first war” said the grunt to the asshole.

Danziger was a smart but clueless and conformist middle-class kid when he was drafted in 1967.  He gradually understood what he was up against in the Army and spent time hiding out - badly learning Vietnamese and training in ordnance – but eventually ended up in the bush.  After the war Danziger became a political cartoonist and yes, this guy still spent 4 years in the Army and one year of that in Vietnam.  Pretty sad for a guy who thought it was all an avoidable circus.  As even he says, “I was … a failure at avoiding the worst ideas.”  Which is perhaps why he became an officer.

This is what is called a ‘rollicking read’ and indeed it is.  Sardonic, humorous, absurd, revealing and hostile to the whole FTA Army and Vietnam SNAFU, it will crank you through the worn-out clichés of army training, army life, army lies and deadly idiocy.  Orders become optional after a few weeks of warfare.  The sacred grail of ‘bombing our way to victory’ is revealed as contradictory.   All Danziger wanted to do was avoid being killed or wounded – and he succeeded - without perching in a tree naked.

Danziger describes Long Binh, a cesspool of American war garbage and baking hot shipping container jails for recalcitrant GIs.  Out of 20,000 male grads of Ivy League schools between 1965 and 1975, only 11 were killed in the ‘Nam – reflecting another class cesspool closer to home.  The U.S. and South Vietnamese government had agreed to leave the huge French-owned Michelin rubber tree plantations alone as an economic deal – so the Viet Cong set up inside.  Lame-ass comedians like Bob Hope were loathed by smoke-covered soldiers, who were still ordered to attend his tits and beer-soaked USO tours.  One of Danziger’s random ‘officer’ duties at his main base at Phuoc Vinh was to visit the refrigerated morgue trailers to certify the U.S. dead.  One U.S. “Mengele” commander got the itch to operate on wounded Viet Cong without anesthesia so they’d scream out secrets.  That cruel idea did not work, as secrets are not on your mind when being cut open.  Danziger was there to take notes and regretted it.  He caps his tour by accompanying a foolish invasion of Laos and the Ho Chi Minh trail by the South Vietnamese ARVN, who clung to the helicopters rather than drop onto the mountain tops.  

Danziger voted for Nixon, so that should give you an idea of where he was/is coming from.  But even he eventually realized Nixon has lost his nut.  As an example of Danziger's politics he continually frames the war as one of ‘north’ versus ‘south,’ ignoring the southern Viet Cong, the southern NLF or the southern peasantry, instead promoting a major Pentagon lie.  

Nevertheless this is the funniest book on the American War in Vietnam, if such a thing is possible.  Not wanting to die serves the trick.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, to investigate our 14 year archive of reviews, with these terms:   “Matterhorn,” “Kill Anything That Moves,” “People’s History of the Vietnam War,” "Soldiers in Revolt,” “In the Crossfire – Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary,” “The Sympathizer” “Working-Class War,” “Da 5 Bloods,” “What It Is Like to Go To War,” “The Latitude of Mercy,” “Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's 'Balanced' Whitewash of the American War,” “A Viet Cong Memoir,” “Soldiers in Revolt.”

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog (the Frog has been traveling…)

December 10, 2021