Vietnam war correspondent Neil Sheehan took 16 years
to write this
biography of
Lt. Colonel John Paul Vann, the
citizen-soldier who went to
Vietnam, proved himself a hero,
became hopelessly entangled in the American government's
"bright shining lie," and died, tragically, just as he was about to
make a real difference in American policy there.
A Bright Shining Lie is the real thing—a true story that
reads like an action/adventure film.
John Paul Vann was a complicated man who transcended a
hardscrabble childhood to become a valued advisor in the
early days of America's involvement in Vietnam.
Vann was fearlessly outspoken and doggedly professional,
and the things he saw in Vietnam in March of 1962 scared
him to death. The South Vietnamese Army was corrupt and
incompetent. The U.S. military was stagnant and blind to the
realities of a guerilla war of such magnitude.
Vann was that most troublesome of characters in the military—a
whistleblower. His superiors refused to listen, and after years of
fruitlessly banging his head against the virtual Pentagon/Congress
wall, Vann left the army he loved, frustrated, and haunted as well
by a dark secret of his own.
So bleak were America's hopes in Vietnam, and so accurate was
Vann in his assessment of the war, that—incredibly—he was
asked by a schizophrenic U.S. government to return to
Vietnam in 1971.
Like a vengeful but morally superior phoenix, John Paul Vann
rose to the task, and as a civilian commanded an
entire corps in Vietnam. This is normally a general's
assignment, and it is illustrative of America's tragic collective
confusion that John Paul Vann, like 58,000 other Americans
and countless Vietnamese, died for no good reason at all.
For those of us looking for some sort of moral-historical
compass regarding America's involvement in Southeast
Asia, Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie (along with Frances
Fitzgerald's Fire in the Lake) flies as true as a bullet
to the heart. It is essential reading for anyone who ever
wondered why?
On Vietnam:
REMFS
- I was a prisoner in a Mexican Whorehouse
- A long time gone
- How to brush your teeth in a combat zone
- Libber and I go to war
- Fate takes a piss
- Thanks For the Memory
- Back in the Shit
- LZ Waterloo
- Saturday Night, Numbah Ten
grunts
Phantom
a long commute
Andy X Kirby True
a tale of two Woodstocks
Buy a Gun
Dawn at The Wall
Draft
Feat of Clay
Funeral Detail
I was a free man once, in Saigon
The Joint Chiefs of Staff
the shit we ate
AK-47
Breaking Starch
Combat Infantryman Badge
David Dellinger
Dickey Chapelle
Firebase Mary Ann
Garry Owen
Gloria Emerson
Graves Registration
I Corps
MOS
Project 100,000
REMF
the 1st Cav
The Highest Traditions
Those Who Forget
Under the Southern Cross
Whither the Phoenix?
A Bright Shining Lie
Apocalypse Now Redux
Hearts and Minds
We Were Soldiers
On Hollywood and filmmaking:
Below the Line
sex drugs and divorce
a little life, interrupted
- Hecho en Mejico
- Entrances
- Sam's Song
- Hemingway and Fortuna
- Hummingbird on the Left
- The Long and Drunken Afternoon
- Safe in the Lap of the Gods
- Quetzal Birds in Love
- Angela in Paradise
- And the machine ran backwards
a secondhand coffin
how to act
Right. Me and Herman Melville
Scylla and Charybdis Approximately
snowflakes and nylon
I could've kissed Orson Welles
the broken dreams of Orson Welles
the last time I saw Orson Welles
The Other Side of the Wind
ASC
avid
Below the Line
completion bond
D/Vision
Film Editing
Film Editor
Final Cut Pro
forced development
HD Video
insert
king of the queens
Kubrick polishes a turd
movies from space
moviola
Panavision
Persistence of Vision
Sven Nykvist
Wilford Brimley
21 Grams
A.I.
Andrei Rublyov
Apocalypse Now Redux
Ivan's Childhood
The Jazz Singer
Mirror
Nostalghia
The Sacrifice
We Were Soldiers
Wild Strawberries