Insty points out this great article by Robert Kaplan in The Atlantic, in which he writes about some of the worthy Viet Nam soldier memoirs that haven’t found a general audience, for a variety of reasons, such as publishers’ unwillingness to print them and reviewers unwillingness to review them. Sounds like a resource that a privately-funded production company might be able to turn into a remarkable series of films for, if nothing else (given the distribution industry), DVD subscription.
In a better world, there would be federal matching funds for such undertakings if PBS declined to underwrite the effort. And one has to wonder whether Doug Lambert would be attracting such vitriol had he not led the failed effort to de-fund that indispensible institution.
I disagree with Vodkapundit that it’s the most important read of the summer. In my view, that title’s deserved by Karl’s ever-embiggering Big Picture(s), not just on the merits, but also on the timeliness.
UPDATE: Or we could just get Slate to release them as comic books.
Scott Eric will be so pleased. And when Scott Eric is pleased, the world is a brighter place.
There’s actually an organization of Vietnam vets in this area that is specifically dedicated to dispelling the image of said vets as gook-massacring hopheads. Here they are at a Veterans Day parade a couple of years ago, turned out in crisp business suits.
There’s a black girl in the background. She’s smiling.
She’s already been picked up by the men in white and taken to the John Edwards Center for Mandatory Mental Rehabilitation for observation, self-criticism and removal of her false consciousness. She’ll be released when she can snatch the Ann Coulter column from her doctor’s hand.
Best line in Kaplan’s article — and similar to what is happening in the better areas of Iraq now:
“In Algeria that type of officer died out. When we came in from operations we had to deal with the police, build sports grounds, attend classes. Regulations? They hadn’t provided for anything, even if one tried to make an exegesis of them with the subtlety of a rabbi.”