****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
I start by saying that I finished this work. During the course of the read I was surprised by how much I learned from Ms. Maddow's scholarship. I rarely, if ever laughed aloud, though I was amused throughout, which gives the writer much credit as she chronicles what amounts to one tragedy after another. Tragedy if looked at it from the receiving end of the might our country (passport holder and US Air Force veteran who lost significant hearing to B-52's as we tried to pell mell the Vietnamese revolutionary army to submission, as though our minute men would have given up the fight) has continued to press on the WEAK and POOR in the name of justice.Maddow's insight and research into my war, as well as the structure that surrounded Reagan's administrations and on ward, though Bush, Clinton's and the Bushies on to Obama's. It is a work of scholarship and art. In my day, I was just an ignorant kid who, after being pulled from the b-52 flight line due to significant hearing loss, I found myself clerking for a Bomber Operations planning team. As well as making copies of what-not and flight plans, sometimes 12 feet long, I participated in briefing and debriefing bomber crews (flipping over heads in cue). Day after day viewing the photographs of their previous day's bombardments was a sobering, traumatic experience.I wasn't one of Maddow's choir by any means. Just a kid who liked to chase girls, drink beer and race cars - along with wishing I was a tall as the "Duke". It doesn't take a genius to know when people are lying to you though. It just takes thinking, over time, a little bit day after day, listening to your conscience. I watched month after month of our bombardment of jungle filled with creatures of so many kinds, so much life and we (me too) only counted people's bodies (what you see) and trucks, and prayed day after day "with God on our side" everyday. And almost every day I saw the Orange Robed Monks move about their people and I thought, "My God, them too!"In 2003 I read the Biography of a Viet Cong (Google), I realized I had been chasing him and his people in '71, we were pulverizing them in their tunnels as they tried (some successful) to escape our wrath, across Southeast Asia, illegally. And even he FLED Vietnam as one of the boat people. We wouldn't help them become a free democracy and life under communist rule (those that would help them gain independence) was awful for that patriot of freedom and family, those he could rescue after he won the war (just so you understand the depth of just that one of many tragedies)!I never thought about it until I was there though, day after day and I slowly realized I didn't feel these people meant me any harm. They were protecting theirs. I never really heard Mohamed Ali's proclamation until after that fact. "Oh my God, oh my God!" You know, read this book! If I only could have!Maddow has done a more thorough job of research than I've been able to muster in the better part of the last 40 years trying to get up to speed on the details of what it was that I had swallowed as a kid. Hey, I just wanted to be a part of something I could be proud over, I had no idea I would need t become a scholar to grasp the depth of the tragedy. I am not a journalist though, but I am a scholar and Maddow makes me proud.She gives me hope, too. She writes a level headed piece wide swipe of level headed journalism/history that actually entertains with wit and insight. While it may alienate those of the Republican base (anger the neoconservatives beyond a doubt), as hearing and uncomfortable truth will do if you've invested your conscience in fabricated truths, I was one, as I pointed out and my insights on the duplicity of American policy nearly drove me mad with shame and humiliation. But then I wanted truth, so much so that I got the name.The hope though is the Maddow's scholarship rings so true that those folks that will make or break American by the casting of their vote. You know, those 10%, or so in the middle, who are trying to get to the truth. I feel that they will be able to hear (read) what Maddow is saying, what she says so well and with not nearly the rancor that I repeatedly spew. She writes with a clarity that I feel will not alienate those folks who will make the difference in what policies America will bare out in the future by casting their for an honest truth.It isn't like Maddow will do this single handed, but this is a book that most of us can confidently hand out to those who haven't quite understood. It will give them years to think about and a kinder read, though every bit as truthful as Chomsky. It wouldn't hurt to give it to our friends, too, who may be discouraged and not want to bother to vote. If they read they'll read it. The reality of the need for Obama to play politics is hard for even some of us who are knowledgeable of games that must be played to be relevant on the political level. George W. is the example of how much pain that political level can bring to the planet, if not checked. And it is us in the sights, us and our kids!Maddow spells it out. The stakes are high, how many countries can American degrade as we've done in Vietnam and Iraq, how many of our brothers and sisters can we allowed to maim in the name of a fictitious justice, before... The last four times I've gone to VA Med Center I saw new boys without legs, some without arms, too. It wasn't fiction that motivated them to go in, even if they went in motivated by an enormous LIE. A lie that I've called Reckless Endangerment and Treason by those who perpetuated it; these young men are the living truth of it!If you've read me this far, and you don't believe it fictitious, you think that is too hard a word, read the book and then lets have discussion.My gratitude to Rachel Maddow, who faced her own shadows day after day, not doubt, as writers who get into who get into the mix of it must. You did it girl, you didn't quit and the gift is a fine piece of work that speaks volumes and can make a difference. Thanks!Satya
