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Brennan's War: Vietnam 1965-1969
An acclaimed memoir of mortal combat with the 1/9th Cavalry Blues in Vietnam.
290 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 15, 2021
The quite remarkable transformation of an adrenaline war junkie to a conscientious objector in the space of over 1,000 days in the war. The action in this memoir came so fast and furious that I became desensitized halfway through and got bored even. Perhaps it was just the way the violence was conveyed - so matter of factly, that the unrelenting carnage ceased to register in my head. Then about three quarters of the way through the author had a eureka moment while recuperating from battle and grew a conscience, beginning to learn about the historical facts surrounding the conflict. The remaining time in country was spent just getting through the war and keeping as many other American soldiers alive as he could. I had not come across previous accounts of how dysfunctional the U.S. Army was slowly becoming from 1969 onward, so it was quite interesting (enjoyable would be the wrong word!) to read about.
December 6, 2013
This wasn't a bad book. In fact, it was fairly engrossing. It was fast paced and I read it in a day. The narrative is written so that it's like a series of very short stories, mostly about the action Brennan encountered in Vietnam, where he served for four years. He signed back up for extended tours of duty twice because he couldn't readjust to civilian society. Kind of sad.
He was with the 9th Armored Air Cav, in a unit called The Blues, which he paints as some kind of super-macho, better than Special Forces unit, which didn't sit well with me. He was an artilleryman, an infantryman, and he wasn't part of Special Forces. Still, he claimed to have taken part in over 419 battles of varying sizes, most recon or rescue missions.
Funny, but he seemed to think we were wiping the NVA/VC off the map until Tet, when he finally seemed to get a minor clue. His unit was near Hue during the fighting, but he didn't actually engage them too much. Hue seems to be the turning point for him.
When he went back to the States for the second time, he was confronted with hippies and war protestors, which shocked him. Apparently, he wasn't exposed to what America was going through while he was in the field. When he went back for his third tour, the men had changed to poorly trained, racist, dope smoking losers who he had no respect for, and by the time his tour was up, he's anxious to get out. Of course, by this time, the NVA had real weapons and was using them to pound the American positions, something that finally got to his nerves.
He details accounts of bravery, but also of atrocities that should have been prosecuted. It's a good book -- it really is. The only reason I'm downgrading it from five stars to four is with the way he described his unit and their fighting prowess, America should have never lost the war. These platoons (platoons!!!) allegedly killed hundreds and thousands of NVA/VC all over the place and the killing never ends until the very end of the book. With soldiers like Brennan and his buddies, how could we have possibly lost this war??? Pretty hard to believe. Perhaps he enjoys taking license with the facts, I don't know. It was just hard to swallow, knowing what I know. Nonetheless, it's an interesting read and if you want a perspective from a grunt's view in Vietnam, this isn't a bad place to start. Cautiously recommended.
He was with the 9th Armored Air Cav, in a unit called The Blues, which he paints as some kind of super-macho, better than Special Forces unit, which didn't sit well with me. He was an artilleryman, an infantryman, and he wasn't part of Special Forces. Still, he claimed to have taken part in over 419 battles of varying sizes, most recon or rescue missions.
Funny, but he seemed to think we were wiping the NVA/VC off the map until Tet, when he finally seemed to get a minor clue. His unit was near Hue during the fighting, but he didn't actually engage them too much. Hue seems to be the turning point for him.
When he went back to the States for the second time, he was confronted with hippies and war protestors, which shocked him. Apparently, he wasn't exposed to what America was going through while he was in the field. When he went back for his third tour, the men had changed to poorly trained, racist, dope smoking losers who he had no respect for, and by the time his tour was up, he's anxious to get out. Of course, by this time, the NVA had real weapons and was using them to pound the American positions, something that finally got to his nerves.
He details accounts of bravery, but also of atrocities that should have been prosecuted. It's a good book -- it really is. The only reason I'm downgrading it from five stars to four is with the way he described his unit and their fighting prowess, America should have never lost the war. These platoons (platoons!!!) allegedly killed hundreds and thousands of NVA/VC all over the place and the killing never ends until the very end of the book. With soldiers like Brennan and his buddies, how could we have possibly lost this war??? Pretty hard to believe. Perhaps he enjoys taking license with the facts, I don't know. It was just hard to swallow, knowing what I know. Nonetheless, it's an interesting read and if you want a perspective from a grunt's view in Vietnam, this isn't a bad place to start. Cautiously recommended.
December 6, 2020
This story is about the pulse of an air cavalry reconnaissance troop. The eyes and ears of the 1st Cavalry Division and the type of high risk assignment that attracted adrenaline junkies and aggressive individuals. Matthew Brennan started the war as a private and finished as a junior officer. The dust jacket notes that he recorded more than 400 helicopter assault landings during 39 months in South Vietnam. His lifestyle led to PTSD, filled with tragedy, extreme violence, deprivation, boredom, and occasional release through alcohol or drugs.
For most of his time in Vietnam, Brennan was assigned to the 1st Squadron/9th Cavalry, a unit also known as the “Headhunters” that earned three Presidential Unit Citations. What sets his memoir apart from others is the penetrating insights about a drift in battlefield tactics of the U.S. Army, during the transition of high command from General William Westmoreland to General Creighton Abrams.
Through multiple tours of duty from 1965 to 1969, Brennan’s view of the Vietnam conflict evolved from enthusiasm to disillusionment. His misgivings were in step with the army’s pivot from offensive to defensive posture, as the attempt to reduce American losses caused more problems than it solved. Vietcong and PAVN troops replied with more rocket fire and sapper attacks on U.S. bases, where a bunker mentality and cabin fever heightened drug abuse, race riots and other violence in the camps. The erosion of morale and trust in leadership began to tell.
The author addressed the chaos of “pile on” tactics popularized by General Abrams, a view that was somewhat different than the bland, official press releases. In September 1968, Bernard Weinraub of the New York Times wrote that General Abrams “stressed more flexible tactics in sweep operations, including the ‘pile on’ in which units rush into an area when an engagement with the enemy begins and attempt to crush or cut off any enemy withdrawal.”
Colonel George Patton commanded the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment from July 1968 to April 1969. His exit statement from this period, or Senior Officer Debriefing Report, is available at the DTIC Web site and he also wrote a two-part article about the “pile on” method for Armor magazine, in 1970. Patton later said that, “The slogan,‘Find the Bastards and Pile On,’ was the regiments motto prior to my arrival at the unit in July of 1968.”
Brennan described the “pile on” doctrine as the work of “some frustrated military genius” and “the coordination of former 9th Cav landings was lost in a whirling insect cloud of different types of helicopters.” Adding that, “the 9th Cav rescue operations of earlier years had involved a formation of slicks escorted by a minimum of four gunships. We would roar into an area at high speed and land with a suddenness and a calculated violence that almost always disorganized the enemy. ‘Pile on’ made ours the only confusion in 1969.”
Another unwanted change was in the “pink” teams that consisted of one scout helicopter (hunter) and one helicopter gunship (killer). The Bell UH-1 “Huey” gunship was replaced with the Bell AH-1 Cobra, or “snake” which was faster, but did not have flexible door guns and that restricted the field of fire. The snakes also flew high, instead of low like the Huey gunships with door gunners. Communist troops then focused their guns on the low flying scout ship, typically a Hughes OH-6 light observation helicopter (LOH).
The scouts were essentially used as bait to draw fire and set-up a counter-attack by the snakes. Patton claimed that this low-high arrangement was supposedly the best practice, but Brennan wrote the actual effects were that the scouts suffered higher losses and the number of enemy personnel killed by the pink teams declined to about 1/3 of previous totals.
This book is a must read for those interested in the ongoing battle for memory of the war, which is still being waged by the armies of orthodox and revisionist historians.
For most of his time in Vietnam, Brennan was assigned to the 1st Squadron/9th Cavalry, a unit also known as the “Headhunters” that earned three Presidential Unit Citations. What sets his memoir apart from others is the penetrating insights about a drift in battlefield tactics of the U.S. Army, during the transition of high command from General William Westmoreland to General Creighton Abrams.
Through multiple tours of duty from 1965 to 1969, Brennan’s view of the Vietnam conflict evolved from enthusiasm to disillusionment. His misgivings were in step with the army’s pivot from offensive to defensive posture, as the attempt to reduce American losses caused more problems than it solved. Vietcong and PAVN troops replied with more rocket fire and sapper attacks on U.S. bases, where a bunker mentality and cabin fever heightened drug abuse, race riots and other violence in the camps. The erosion of morale and trust in leadership began to tell.
The author addressed the chaos of “pile on” tactics popularized by General Abrams, a view that was somewhat different than the bland, official press releases. In September 1968, Bernard Weinraub of the New York Times wrote that General Abrams “stressed more flexible tactics in sweep operations, including the ‘pile on’ in which units rush into an area when an engagement with the enemy begins and attempt to crush or cut off any enemy withdrawal.”
Colonel George Patton commanded the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment from July 1968 to April 1969. His exit statement from this period, or Senior Officer Debriefing Report, is available at the DTIC Web site and he also wrote a two-part article about the “pile on” method for Armor magazine, in 1970. Patton later said that, “The slogan,‘Find the Bastards and Pile On,’ was the regiments motto prior to my arrival at the unit in July of 1968.”
Brennan described the “pile on” doctrine as the work of “some frustrated military genius” and “the coordination of former 9th Cav landings was lost in a whirling insect cloud of different types of helicopters.” Adding that, “the 9th Cav rescue operations of earlier years had involved a formation of slicks escorted by a minimum of four gunships. We would roar into an area at high speed and land with a suddenness and a calculated violence that almost always disorganized the enemy. ‘Pile on’ made ours the only confusion in 1969.”
Another unwanted change was in the “pink” teams that consisted of one scout helicopter (hunter) and one helicopter gunship (killer). The Bell UH-1 “Huey” gunship was replaced with the Bell AH-1 Cobra, or “snake” which was faster, but did not have flexible door guns and that restricted the field of fire. The snakes also flew high, instead of low like the Huey gunships with door gunners. Communist troops then focused their guns on the low flying scout ship, typically a Hughes OH-6 light observation helicopter (LOH).
The scouts were essentially used as bait to draw fire and set-up a counter-attack by the snakes. Patton claimed that this low-high arrangement was supposedly the best practice, but Brennan wrote the actual effects were that the scouts suffered higher losses and the number of enemy personnel killed by the pink teams declined to about 1/3 of previous totals.
This book is a must read for those interested in the ongoing battle for memory of the war, which is still being waged by the armies of orthodox and revisionist historians.
July 13, 2021
A great book about Vietnam. A good discussion about the early troops at the begining of the war and what draftees brought to the war later on. A lot of good action and a lot of thought provoking at the end.
February 26, 2026
Good history of ace pilots. I liked their stories about what happened and how they survived.
November 10, 2024
Another chopper pilot book. factual and entertaining. I personally knew a chopper pilot, went to school with him from the first grade on . He was crazy then and I can see him being crazy as a chopper pilot. He didn't make it back from Vietnam.
As far as this book goes, i recommend it to anyone who didn't make it Vietnam but wonder what it was like. If you like flying, helicopters,and true war stories you should like this book.
It gives insight to what it was like flying in combat, down close to the ground.
As far as this book goes, i recommend it to anyone who didn't make it Vietnam but wonder what it was like. If you like flying, helicopters,and true war stories you should like this book.
It gives insight to what it was like flying in combat, down close to the ground.
February 7, 2010
An often hair-raising, heroic and insightful, boots-on-the-ground look at the Vietnam War with all its mystery, sadness, heroism, carnage, and pointlessness. Brennan gives a personal account of life in the Army both in rear and in the thick of terrible battle with an elite combat unit where losing friends and comrades is a daily part of life. He spent almost 4 years total in Vietnam. He got out of the Army for a while and was unable to readjust and returned to the Vietnam that haunted him in his dreams and car engine backfires. What he found was when he returned was not the same Vietnam he had left. He stopped counting at 419 combat battles, which didn't include mere skirmishes or combat with other units. The mystery may be made a little mysterious and yet at once the perplexing reasons to fight in that divided country only grow more confusing. The irony of how he was finally able to leave the Army behind is worth reading about, if for no other reason.
December 2, 2014
Its difficult to understand how powerful this book is and how important until you get a chance to sit down and read it. There are a lot of books about Vietnam out there, but perhaps because this is the first really serious first-hand account I ever read, this one is the best I know of. It is the story of a 1st Air Cav soldier in the Vietnam War almost from the very first days the USA was involved until it all fell to pieces and it traces the hopeful and potent beginnings to the horrible collapse and why, from the inside.
Its full of an amazing sequence of stories, told with brutal honesty and reality by a gifted, even poetic writer whose innocence was destroyed without ruining his soul or his love of country and fellow soldiers. If you really want to understand Vietnam, and the men who were there, you need to read this book.
Its full of an amazing sequence of stories, told with brutal honesty and reality by a gifted, even poetic writer whose innocence was destroyed without ruining his soul or his love of country and fellow soldiers. If you really want to understand Vietnam, and the men who were there, you need to read this book.
April 5, 2021
Fantastic memoir of a sergeant mainly in the 9th Regiment of the 1st Air Calvary Divisionin Vietnam. It reads like a memoir of someone that did multiple tours in that war.
I don’t want to give much away, but it very much had a feel like the movies Platoon or Hamburger Hill. This book was written in the 80s, so it was one of those first memoirs that came out telling what that war actually was,... hell with rules & bureaucracy with little common sense at times.
I don’t want to give much away, but it very much had a feel like the movies Platoon or Hamburger Hill. This book was written in the 80s, so it was one of those first memoirs that came out telling what that war actually was,... hell with rules & bureaucracy with little common sense at times.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews