The War Within

Don Tate

4.24 · Rating details · 17 ratings · 5 reviews

At the age of 19, Don Tate volunteered for duty in the Vietnam War. This is his story, of the trouble-strewn path to manhood in the shadow of his father, a violent petty criminal surviving horrific war injuries and years of hospitalisation and struggling to find a place in society that did not want to recognise his military service.

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Paperback, 461 pages

Published August 1st 2008 by [Pier 9]

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Jan 08, 2015 M.A. McRae added it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Note: this review contains spoilers - though not, I think, anything that will make the read any the less worthwhile. I have not given this book a star rating. I don't know how to rate it.

The War Within.

I have sometimes thought that young men think of nothing but fightin’, drinkin’ and rootin’. One thing I gathered from Don Tate’s autobiography is that I was more right than I could ever have believed. It is unusual to find an autobiography that shows all the worst aspects of a person, rather th ...more

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Oct 25, 2010 Bernie Weisz rated it it was amazing

Review Written by Bernie Weisz Vietnam War Historian October 26, 2010 Pembroke Pines, Florida U.S.A. Contact: BernWei1@aol. com Title of Review: Don Tate's Vietnam Experience: "I didn't Know it Then, But By Going to That War, I'd Also Taken 2 Steps Back As A Human Being!"
Don Tate's memoir, "The War Within" is so vast that it could have made three separate books. Not only a memoir of his role as an infantryman in an extremely unpopular war, this is a story of how a man can beat the demons within Review Written by Bernie Weisz Vietnam War Historian October 26, 2010 Pembroke Pines, Florida U.S.A. Contact: BernWei1@aol. com Title of Review: Don Tate's Vietnam Experience: "I didn't Know it Then, But By Going to That War, I'd Also Taken 2 Steps Back As A Human Being!"
Don Tate's memoir, "The War Within" is so vast that it could have made three separate books. Not only a memoir of his role as an infantryman in an extremely unpopular war, this is a story of how a man can beat the demons within, overcome the goblin's of his past, and ultimately forgive himself for transgressions he thought unpardonable. The oldest of eight children, he spent most of his childhood in Ellen Grove, a suburb between Brisbane and Ipswich, Australia. This memoir is a soul bared to the world- a record of lifelong deeds, including those he would perhaps have preferred to forget. Don Tate readily admits that particular matters tarnish his accomplishments. There are subjects in this book rarely touched upon in other memoirs. Most notably is his volatile relationship with his father- a man who simply could not obey laws. Although Tate's love for his father is blatant, he is put in compromising situations rarely called upon for a youth so innocent. Most of Tate's younger years, up to the point of his joining the Australian military was juxtaposed with the sad fact that his father was incarcerated for one reason or another. A theme that is immediately apparent is Don Tate’s readiness to fight, bred and bashed into him. He ultimately spends his life quarrelling, fighting authority, battling the Viet Cong, trying to correct perceived injustices, and even struggling to maintain his own sanity. Tate takes you on a ride that almost leaves you breathless- abused in school by a sadistic teacher, beaten up by an Australian gang banger, almost mortally wounded in action, shot in the hip by the Viet Cong, as he almost "off's himself " in a suicide attempt, and in countless hi jinks with the opposite sex, and most lamentably, the near erasure from the Australian record books of his military service, an inconsolable injustice that takes four decades to correct. One can’t help but observe that he is no quitter. Four years in the writing, this incredible memoir covers subjects we are all familiar with to some extent- graphic sex and violence, friendship, revenge, remorse and regret. Other territories covered, but not limited to, are war, pride, patriotism, conflict, love, loss, estrangement, suicide, Christianity, God, infidelity, and especially pain (excruciating physical and unbearable mental.) In a particularly disturbing first Part to the memoir, "Sins of the Father" Tate painfully lamented his father's destructive, alcoholic and violent behavior towards all in his family. With his father's frequent spells behind bars, young Tate, the oldest son of a family of eight, was forced to leave school at the age of fifteen. Compelled to fend for himself at an age where most American youths are playing sports or planning for the future, his life went in a direction he never dreamed would occur. Lacking paternal direction, socially, morally, or ethically, Tate's life up to the age of eighteen was whimsical- a litany of near-death experiences and adventures. After almost killing himself and a carload of fellow teenagers, Tate volunteered for Vietnam instead. Of the period before his patriotic endeavor, Tate says: "It was just a time for sowing wild oats-a blur of breasts and beer and legs opened amid the sound of surf crashing on the sand." Typical of the soldier not anointed with the reality that "war is hell", Tate felt that the apex of masculine nobility was fighting for one's country, vis-à-vis with the enemy on his own turf, engaged in mortal combat. Another falsism to be to be smashed was Tate's illusion that Australia would honor his patriotism thereafter the war, and that his Vietnam war record was a badge of honor. Although he attributes his fallacious reasoning to an immature eighteen-year old mind, he also "thought" that if he was wounded in combat, he would be properly cared for medically- a myth that is now self evident in the wake of the current "Agent Orange" medical mismanagement scandal in both the U.S. and Australia. Ignoring the cliché "never volunteer for anything", Tate did exactly that. Self recruiting himself for an army infantry unit destined for the jungles of Vietnam, he would serve as a rifleman across four different Australian army units. At the seven and a half month juncture, a Viet Cong AK 47 slug to his hip would forever change his life . Endless small contacts, search and destroy missions and enemy bunker assaults are vividly encountered. As the reader will see, Tate was smart enough to bring with him a "Super 8" camera documenting parts of the action he partook in as well as different periods of his Vietnam tour of duty, an indisputable fact that some slimy detractors many years after the war tried to deny Tate's participation in. People lie, real video clips do not. The author has sent me parts of these clips, and I was very impressed with this footage, causing this reviewer to shake his head incredulously at Tate's detractors, foolish enough to assert the ridiculous premise that Tate was never in Vietnam or wasn’t involved in combat, and that this book is a product of his imagination. Prior to being shot, Tate thought that because he was unhurt in some very close calls, like so many other young men did, he felt he was indestructible. However, it is made clear that this nineteen year old's illusion of war's grandeur was about to evaporate. Tate's reaction to battle, commonly known as "combat adrenalin" as well as life and death struggles was typical. An irreplaceable quest for excitement and exhilaration was forever ignited. Once out of Vietnam, the void left in the absence of those waves of adrenalin left a void that even today still presides. Tate correctly points out that many Vietnam veterans, in struggling to fill that void, picked up destructive drug and alcohol habits, or took on dangerous risk taking, precarious pursuits to equal that unattainable rush that only their combat experience could produce. This book has descriptions of violence only one with a strong stomach can endure. Don Tate saw death, killed, saw his fellow "diggers" horribly wounded and maimed, and even retrieved body parts of men alive only moments before. One particularly horrible memory was where Tate at age nineteen picked up a dead Viet Cong soldier to bury him. The body broke in two, and the deceased man's intestines landed all over Tate's boots, causing him to instantly regurgitate. The smell of death is just as strong to Tate today as it was forty years ago. Four percent of men involved in combat in Vietnam were wounded. Tate was one of that 4%. Without spoiling the plot, Tate was also part of an illegally created Australian platoon (the 2nd D&E Platoon) that was involved in a "sapper's funeral" – the destruction of bodies killed in an ambush, and the stringing up of other bodies to the backs of armoured personnel carriers. In an attempt to cover-up these deeds, Tate alleges that his platoon was removed from the history books- and only reinstated in 2008 after a fierce battle with the government and the military. Tate survived the ambush in a Viet Cong bunker system some months later, and after a two year period of hospitalization, was devastated to learn that parts of his wartime service including the 2nd D&E Platoon and the unit he was wounded in, the 9th Battalion, had "mysteriously and suspiciously" been erased from his service records. Except for the fact that his colour movie footage proved his entire service history, he would have found himself in a bureaucratic ‘no-man’s land’. The intelligent decision to film parts of his tour provided indisputable proof of his service- unassailable by those who would argue otherwise.
But "The War Within" truly started for Don Tate once the conflict in Vietnam was over. In the hospitalization process, he endured endless infections, skin grafts, disintegrating bones, watching from a hospital bed as his schoolmates and fellow veterans went on with their lives. The only saving grace for Tate was a godsend in Carole, his wife who stuck by his side through everything and anything. The balance of this book documents Tate's struggles to right the wrongs of his unit's history erasure, the "2nd D & E Platoon" from the history books, a fight that is discussed in fascinating detail. In correcting this terrible injustice, Tate was accused by many ex-servicemen of lacking "espirit de corps" by insinuating that the Australian military abuses the most impressionable and vulnerable of soldiers and unfairly rewards undeserving officers of rank with "gallantry medals", giving them immoderate and improper rides through life after the conflict. Tate took a big risk asserting his belief that the Australian military doesn't respect or care about the Vietnam veterans that fought for their country."The War Within" can be a synonym for an unwarrantable fact that Tate suffered a threefold alienation- fighting in an unpopular war, being wounded and permanently disabled by it, and then by attacking the warmongers that sent him there in the first place, and is now largely alienated from the veteran community that should have welcomed him with open arms. The real gist of this book, when it is really broken down, is Tate's dysfunctional relationship with his father affecting him in every aspect of his life, and continuing to this today. Taught by Tate Senior that one's ability to take a punch and how many women could be "caught" was a measure of manhood, the author learns the hard way that "the sins of the father" didn't prove anything at all. Nor did going to Vietnam. Tate now believes that after experiencing his "war within" , each man must gauge his manhood by his sense of responsibility to his wife, family, community, rising above the hand one is given and ensuring that one's children do not repeat the sins of their father. In Don Tate’s "The War Within, Americans are treated to a rare trip through Vietnam's jungles though an Australian's eye. Tate covers everything from parental, sexual and physical abuse, war and it's atrocities, unscrupulousness corruption of history and spiritual identification. Although this memoir is a colorful, and cerebral dissertation, a final comment Tate made echoes innumerable American accounts of grunts attempting to make sense of their Vietnam tour of duty in hell. Lamenting on a sole midnight sentry shift in the jungle, Tate writes: "The jungle, with it's vines and creepers and thick, umbrella canopy, had an awful, claustrophobic edge to it at times. I couldn't help but feel a wave of loneliness sweep over me as I peered into it. I mean, I was thousands of miles from home, fighting in a country I'd never seen marked on a map, and doing it for vague philosophical reasons, and doubtful political ones, and it was as dangerous a thing as anyone could imagine. And while I wasn't prone to sentimentality or reflection, that night I got to pondering about where I'd come from to after all this time. Staring at the dark can do that. I mean, I was in a war, and all, but so what? And what did it mean to me?"

I thoroughly recommend this book. It is memorable, significant, exceptionally meaningful, and historic!

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Jan 27, 2017 Elizabeth L. rated it it was amazing

A surprisingly captivating read. One that gave insight into a soldiers take on the Vietnam War, but it was so much more than a novel about a war from his perspective. It is a novel about life, in all its twisted, perverted, hideous, humorous, heart wrenching, and wonderful glory.
I loved every page of this book

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Jan 20, 2013 R.B. Clague rated it it was amazing

'The War Within' is a warts and all portrayal of a life that is, by any standards, extraordinary. It at times made me blush, and left me feeling decidely voyueristic. It made me cry (which is something that doesn't happen often); it made me want to shout at Don, 'Don't do that', or Don't go there', even though the events had already happened. I can't say that I enjoyed the book, but I can say that I loved it, if that makes any sense. I had the pleasure of meeting the author, and his memoir takes ...more

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