Abstract
To investigate how Dispatches defines the relationship between American myth, American masculinity, and warfare’s appeal—and therein how Michael Herr fleshes out Philip Caputo’s concerns and Anthony Swofford’s limits—we first must grasp the context in which this text traditionally has been received. Out of this effort, we can begin work toward a new context, one in which we might read Dispatches as actively engaging not only the American war in Vietnam, but also the war on terror and the implacable allure of combat broadly conceived.
Vietnam was what we had instead of happy childhoods.
—Herr, Dispatches (244)
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Notes
For Herr’s circuitous discussion of the composition of Dispatches and his time in Vietnam more generally, see Michael Herr, Interview, Vietnam, We’ve All Been There: Interviews with American Writers, by Eric James Schroeder (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992) 33–50.
The term “Lurp” refers to U.S. Army soldiers who performed long-range reconnaissance patrols (the marine corps had its own separate reconnaissance capabilities). These soldiers also were known as “LRRPs” or “LRPs.” In Vietnam, the Lurps were an all-volunteer force derived mainly from the Army’s airborne units. By 1969, the Lurps had been reorganized as Ranger elements attached to various outfits. For an outstanding battlefield diary of a former Lurp, see Gary A. Linderer, The Eyes of the Eagle: F Company LRPs in Vietnam, 1968 (New York: Ivy, 1991).
For a cogent analysis of the paradoxical nature, for the Americans, of the Tet Offensive, see Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (1983; rev. ed. New York: Penguin, 1997) 528–81.
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© 2012 Ty Hawkins
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Hawkins, T. (2012). Michael Herr’s Dispatches and the Allure of Combat. In: Reading Vietnam Amid the War on Terror. American Literature Readings in the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137011411_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137011411_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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