MWSA Review

Letters Home: Reflections of a Combat Rifleman by George Berg is a memoir of his time as a combat rifleman in Vietnam. Although it’s clear that veterans had vastly different experiences there—based on their military occupational specialty—this might be the most comprehensive and soul-searing account of the Vietnam War that I have ever read. Taut firefights are interspersed with candid emotions laced with observations that are deep, often lyrical, and immensely insightful—the product of the reflections mentioned in the title.

In this book, we follow 19-year-old George Berg through enlistment, training, deployment, the daily grind in country, combat, wounding in action, hospital recovery, and subsequent attempts at reintegration, showing the specific effects of combat on his young psyche. It’s clear to see the incalculable cost of war that was borne disproportionately by the “grunts.”

Each chapter is based on a month in country and chronicles important events as well as the day-to-day grind, explaining actions, conditions, and results—many times deadly serious but sometimes comical. Of note, each chapter is accompanied by a song title of a contemporaneous song that provides the musical backdrop of the era as well as foretelling the contents of the chapter. Looking up the lyrics or listening to the song before reading the chapter will get you “in the groove.”

The thing that sets this memoir apart from others is the reflective nature of the content and the writing skill of the author. The prose is insightful and sometimes even lyrical. Details are so vivid that the reader can see, sense, and even smell the surroundings the author describes. The reader, however, will have to overlook a number of spelling errors as well as navigate through punctuation that impedes his progress. 

Review by Betsy Beard (April 2024)

 

Author's Synopsis

Letters Home is written from letters home to family, official U.S. Marine Corps documents, military maps, conversations with fellow Marines, and hospital records. The author recounts his very personal combat experiences as an infantry rifleman in Vietnam. It is a candid and often uncomfortably frank description of the brutal conditions Marines faced in Vietnam in 1968. That year was the most violent of the entire war for the Marines; the operational tempo was extreme and unrelenting. During the long hot summer, the new Marine was challenged with ethical and moral dilemmas and decisions…

Format(s) for review: Paper Only

Review Genre: Nonfiction—Memoir/Biography

Number of Pages: 216

Word Count: 71,000