Karl Marlantes - What It Is Like To Go To War

WHAT IT IS LIKE TO GO TO WAR

KARL MARLANTES is a graduate of Yale University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. He served as a marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for Valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten Air Medals. Matterhorn, his novel about the Vietnam War, took over three decades to complete and is an international bestseller. He and his wife, Anne, live on a small lake in western Washington State.

KARL MARLANTES

AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING MATTERHORN

A masterpiece; agonising, brilliant and compelling. BERNARD CORNWELL

Matterhorn should be picked up and read cover to cover. Its scenes and characters are so real that you feel as if youre watching actual combat footage. I wouldnt be surprised if Matterhorn becomes for the Vietnam War what All Quiet on the Western Front was to World War I. JAMES PATTERSON

There have been some very good novels about the Vietnam War, but this is the first great one, and I doubt it will ever be surpassed... Here is storytelling so authentic, so moving and so intense, so relentlessly dramatic, that there were times I wasnt sure I could stand to turn the page. There has never been a more realistic portrait or eloquent tribute to the nobility of men under fire, and never a more damning portrait of a war that ground them cruelly underfoot for no good reason. MARK BOWDEN

Chapter after chapter, battle after battle, Marlantes pushes you through what may be one of the most profound and devastating novels ever to come out of Vietnam or any war. Its not a book so much as a deployment, and you will not return unaltered. SEBASTIAN JUNGER

A novel of great authority and humanity. Devastating and magnificent. CHARLES FRAZIER

I devoured Matterhorn, swept along by the spellbinding power of its narrative... A novel of astonishing power and insight... Marlantes steps alongside Stephen Crane, Joseph Heller and even Ernest Hemingway. OBSERVER

A searing account from within the guts of the war itself. THE TIMES

Modern American literature is rich in writing about war... but nothing comes to mind to compare with the evocations of combat in Matterhorn. Savour each moment. GUARDIAN

Matterhorn boils with anger at the bureaucratic incompetence that sends grunts into battle ill-fed and ill-supplied, the lives needlessly lost to further commanders careers, and the jungle rot of bodies, minds and morality... Marlantes has captured day-to-day survival in impressive detail and turned it into a powerful portrait of humanity. TELEGRAPH

I came close to reading it in one sitting... I was living and dying in Vietnam with Bravo Company. SUNDAY TIMES

Brutal... Graphic... Having finished, I immediately wanted to read it again. Even if Marlantes never writes another word, he can rest satisfied, knowing that not only has he done great service for his country, he has also done great service to the canon of war literature. DAILY MAIL

A heroic, grimly determined expression of the legendary brotherly love of the Corps... You really do feel however much youre kidding yourself as if you have stood inside a marines sweaty uniform, greasy with pus from his skin ulcers and blood from burst leeches... A vivid page-turner that manfully grapples with the nature of war and our fascination with death. FINANCIAL TIMES

A raw, brilliant account of war that may well serve as a final exorcism for one of the most painful passages in American history. SCOTSMAN

One of the best accounts of war Ive read suddenly you understand why Vietnam still tears the US apart. INDEPENDENT

First published in United States of America and Canada in 2011 by Atlantic Monthly Press, an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

This edition published in Great Britain in 2011 by Corvus.

Copyright Karl Marlantes, 2011.

The moral right of Karl Marlantes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Almost all call signs, names, nicknames, and their origins have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals and their families.

Excerpt from Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence, copyright 1926, 1935 by Doubleday, a division of Random house, Inc. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.

Excerpt from The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats, Volume I: The Poems, Revised by W.B. Yeats, edited by Richard J. Finneran. Copyright, 1940 by Georgie Yeats, reserved 1968 by Bertha Georgie Yeats, Michael Yeats and Anne Yeats. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Scribner, a division of Simon and Schuster, Inc.

Excerpt from Egils Saga reprinted by permission of Everymans Library, London.

Excerpt from The Mahabharata reprinted by permission of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Ebook ISBN: 978 0 85789 379 6
Hardback ISBN: 978 0 85789 377 2
Export TPB ISBN: 978 0 85789 378 9

Printed in Great Britain.

Corvus
An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd
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26-27 Boswell Street
London WC1N 3JZ
www.corvus-books.co.uk

The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.

Spartan king, quoted by Thucydides

Any fool can learn from his mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.

Otto von Bismarck

This book is dedicated to the Marines I served with in Vietnam, those who came home and those who didnt, and to all combat veterans who fought and are fighting now with noble heartsall.

PREFACE

I wrote this book primarily to come to terms with my own experience of combat. So farreading, writing, thinkingthat has taken more than forty years. I could have kept my thoughts in a personal journal, but I took on trying to get these reflections published so that I could share them with other combat veterans. Perhaps, in some way, I can help them with their own quest for meaning and their efforts to integrate their combat experiences into their current lives. I also want to share my thoughts and experiences with young people who are contemplating joining the military or who are about to enter combat themselves, sort of like providing them with a psychological and spiritual combat prophylactic, for indeed combat is like unsafe sex in that its a major thrill with possible horrible consequences. Finally, this nation is now engaged in three wars simultaneously, two with both air and ground forces and one from the air only. I am quite certain these are not the last. All conscientious citizens and especially those with the power to make policy will be better prepared to make decisions about committing young people to combat if they know what they are about to ask of them.

The violence of combat assaults psyches, confuses ethics, and tests souls. This is not only a result of the violence suffered. It is also a result of the violence inflicted. Warriors suffer from wounds to their bodies, to be sure, but because they are involved in killing people they also suffer from their compromises with, or outright violations of, the moral norms of society and religion. These compromises and violations are not generally discussed and their impact on a warriors mental health and soul is minimized or even ignored entirely, not only by current military training but by society at large.