Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam
Nick Turse. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2013. 372 pp. Notes. Index. $30.00
Reviewed by Richard A. Ruth
Nick Turse’s Kill Anything that Moves is a grim and unrelenting catalog of U.S. military sadism and brutality in the Vietnam War. It is a searing indictment of the American war planners—our military’s best and brightest—whose reliance on “body count” as a metric of progress condemned countless South Vietnamese civilians to a fate of fear, humiliation, suffering, and death. Turse shines a glaring light on the consequences of fighting an asymmetrical war in which search-and-destroy missions, free-fire zones, and refugee-generating operations were regularly carried out among vulnerable civilian populations.
Unlimited ammunition, a racist disregard for Asian lives, and the invariable accidental killings that occur when a superpower shells concealed guerrillas from the safety of great distance combine in Turse’s analysis to make for a horror show of agony for the Vietnamese people on whose behalf the United States ostensibly fought. Turse asks, “Could America—the world’s ‘good guys’—have implemented a system of destruction that turned rural zones into killing fields and made war crimes all but inevitable?” His answer—presented as a phantasmagoria of murder, rape, torture, and mutilation—suggests several disconcerting questions about the American way of war and about the nature of the American military culture that produced, encouraged, and protected the monstrous perpetrators in its midst.
Turse argues that the enormous toll of civilian victims was neither accidental nor unpredictable. The Pentagon’s demand for quantifiable corpses surged down the chain of command, through all branches of the U.S. military, until many units had become fixated on producing indiscriminate casualties that they could claim as enemy kills. Under this system, killing was incentivized: those with high body counts not only got promoted more quickly, their units were treated better and enjoyed greater safety than those who missed their “killing quotas.” They also received more frequent helicopter transportation, better food and liquor, and longer R&R trips. “Now if you’re telling a nineteen-year-old it’s okay to waste people and he will be rewarded for it,” one veteran recalls, “what do you think that does to his psyche?” The incentivizing of death encouraged some U.S. soldiers to rack up thousands of kills over multiple tours. In a telling detail repeated in many of the case studies examined, the alleged Viet Cong eliminated by these American super killers often had no weapons on them when they were gunned down. Turse makes it clear that such high numbers would have been all but impossible without the inclusion of innocent bystanders.
American atrocities in South Vietnam were not aberrations; according to Turse they were standard operating procedures for many units spread throughout the region. Although Turse uncovers no atrocity to rival the horrific My Lai massacre of March 1968, the phrases “many My Lais” or “a My Lai a month” seem plausible after reading through his graphic descriptions of Americans abusing and murdering South Vietnamese non-combatants during any given month of the war. Many victims are killed merely for remaining in their homes. “If they are there,” one warrant officer reports, “they asked for it.”
There is both new and old in this book. Turse combines original on-site investigations and fresh archival research with a rich sampling of supporting material from several well-known histories and memoirs. A journalist by training, he interviewed survivors from several massacres as a supplement to the Criminal Investigation Command files he uncovered. The disparity in details between the survivors’ horrific recollections and the doubting tone of the official military files is jarring. In many of the cases the reported war crimes, most of them based on evidence from concerned GIs, are dismissed for lack of interest as much as for lack of evidence. One of the most troubling aspects of Turse’s study is the lack of punishment meted out to American soldiers who, by all accounts, committed mass atrocities. Many would-be war criminals escaped prosecution for killing Vietnamese civilians because of what became known unofficially as “the MGR” or the Mere Gook Rule.
Turse’s study is not anti-veteran, anti-military, or anti-American. It does not allege that the majority of U.S. military personnel in South Vietnam committed crimes. Kill Anything that Moves includes the experiences of many Vietnam War veterans who risked their careers and their safety to report atrocities when they discovered them. Nearly all of them recall thinking to themselves, “Americans don’t do things like this,” their surprise and moral outrage generating narrative tension against the numerous atrocities that Turse uncovers. And as hard as it might be for some readers to acknowledge these unpleasant historical episodes, Americans concerned with examining our nation’s past mistakes for the purpose of avoiding their repetition should read this book.
Its sensational title and hyperbolic subtitle aside, this is an important addition to Vietnam War studies. Kill Anything That Moves is a fresh investigation of hitherto unexamined American war crimes and a timely reminder of a dark and unsettling truth about American conduct in Southeast Asia that has been ignored since the 1970s. His arresting narrative shows that while war can provide our soldiers with opportunities for decency, courage, and sacrifice, it can also facilitate opportunities for the dark and the cruel and the sadistic. And only by confronting unsettling historic episodes like those in this study can Americans become more like the people we imagine ourselves to be.
Samudra Manthan: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific
C. Raja Mohan. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2012. 360 pp. Illus. Notes. $49.95 (hardcover), $19.95 (paperback).
Reviewed by Lieutenant Matthew D. Myers, U.S. Navy
The American reader can be forgiven unfamiliarity with the Indian myth wherein Lord Vishnu helps the Hindu pantheon regain their lost potency by enlisting demonic Asuras and a poisonous serpent to churn the ocean of milk Vishnu rests upon into life-giving ambrosia, while ensuring the Asuras don’t get to drink any of it. Yet, students of sea power will find it worthwhile to follow this complex metaphor through renowned security commentator C. Raja Mohan’s latest book. Like Robert Kaplan’s Monsoon, Mohan’s Samudra Manthan offers a grand tour of the “Indo-Pacific,” from East Africa to the Western Pacific. Readers expecting Kaplan’s journalistic immediacy may take a while to warm to Mohan’s measured prose. In place of easy answers, Mohan offers the insights of many years observing (and sometimes shaping) Indian foreign policy. Structurally, the work alternates almost evenly between China and India, but the perspective remains Indian throughout.
The book’s early chapters emphasize the enduring Sino-Indian rivalry, from competition over third-world leadership in the 1950s, through the 1962 Himalayan border clash, to Beijing’s sponsorship of the Pakistani nuclear program. Having grounded the rivalry in geography and history, Mohan traces the strategic parallels between the two states, as Beijing since the 1980s and Delhi since the late 1990s have worked to build blue-water navies, establish access to overseas ports, and formulate maritime strategies commensurate with their newfound geopolitical clout and far-flung commercial interests. For the past several years, this has meant a continuous Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean and a more sporadic, but still consequential, Indian naval presence in the South China Sea and Western Pacific.
Echoing U.S. strategy, Mohan emphasizes the importance of forward presence in establishing and maintaining sea power, then examines how China has tried to reconcile its anti-colonialist rhetoric with the need to fuel and service its increasingly-expeditionary fleet. He goes beyond the tired “string of pearls” thesis to examine how China’s push into maritime South Asia has forced India to reconsider its relations with such island neighbors as Mauritius and the Seychelles, erstwhile protectorates now able to treat Delhi and Beijing like competing suitors. Meanwhile in countries like Burma and Vietnam, traditional tributaries of Beijing, doors and seaports have been opening to Indian diplomacy. Mohan cites Arun Prakash, India’s former chief of naval staff, in cautioning against “taking on commitments in the South China Sea that can’t be defended by current capabilities,” but he is justly unwilling to acquiesce in this vital waterway becoming a Chinese lake.
In Crossing the Rubicon (Palgrave MacMillan, 2003), Mohan encouraged New Delhi to rediscover the expansive, Indocentric foreign policy advocated by Lord Curzon, still reviled by Indians as the viceroy who partitioned Bengal. Samudra Manthan again recalls the Raj’s legacy to highlight India’s historic role as security provider from Oman to Zanzibar to Singapore. To translate that Curzonian vision into naval terms, Mohan summons K. M. Panikkar, whose 1945 India and the Indian Ocean counseled the country’s leaders to ensure such imperial strongholds as Aden, Rangoon, Singapore, and Port Blair remained either part of an independent India or in the hands of a post-imperial commonwealth. Panikkar is sometimes naïve but often prescient—warning, for instance, of the danger from a resurgent China’s naval power—and Mohan has done a great service in reintroducing to a wider audience this founding father of Indian maritime strategy.
As Samudra Manthan draws to a close, Mohan returns to the myth of the churning oceans. After looking for exit ramps from the growing security dilemma between India and China, he determines that the Sino-Indian maritime rivalry is really a triangle, with the United States at its apex. Mohan is more circumspect about the prospects for cooperation between Delhi and Washington than he was a decade ago, but the implicit analogy of the United States as Vishnu, who interrupts his imperial repose to tilt the strategic balance in favor of the worthier—if weaker—side, suggests an underlying confidence in American power. In the myth, a calm sea produced no ambrosia, implying some turmoil is necessary to wake Delhi’s bureaucrats from their long neglect of what Mohan has called “India’s maritime imperative.” It will be rough sailing, but Samudra Manthan offers a convincing picture of an India that is finding its sea legs at last.
Bringing Mulligan Home: The Other Side of the Good War
Dale Maharidge. New York: Public Affairs, 2013. 318 pp. Illus. Notes. $26.99.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Colonel Robert Burrell, U.S. Marine Corps
Author and journalist Dale Maharidge has written a compelling story about the experiences of U.S. Marines in the Pacific War. It is a graphic narrative akin to Eugene Sledge’s With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa.
In Bringing Mulligan Home, the author embarks on a decade-long investigation into his father’s infantry experiences at the battles of Guam and Okinawa in 1944 and 1945. He spends a few chapters in the beginning describing the father he knew while growing up: a hard-working man yet quick to anger and periodically gloomy—particularly over the death of one of his fellow Marines in World War II, Herman Walter Mulligan. Following his father’s death, the author embarks on a quest to discover more about his father’s contentious wartime experiences by interviewing the surviving Marines in L Company, 3d Battalion, 22d Marines. His research culminates in Okinawa, where Maharidge traces his father’s final combat footsteps and interviews Okinawan survivors as well. In the end, how and why Mulligan died becomes secondary to the insights from combat-tested Marines enduring the most hellish warfare on earth.
Maharidge echoes award-winning author John Dower’s work War Without Mercy in producing an image of war in its cruelest sense. Maharidge’s text is polished, and the narrative entices the reader like a crime-solving mystery. Particularly enjoyable is the way the author introduces pictures of the evidence he collects throughout his investigation—raw and unfiltered proof for the reader to evaluate. While this reviewer recommends the book for the knowledgeable Pacific War reader, he cautions that others will need further contextual reading from a traditional historical framework, perhaps Tom Brokaw’s The Greatest Generation.
The author spends most of his efforts explaining the tragedies experienced by Marines and their life-long wounds, including physical impairments, post-traumatic stress disorder, and traumatic brain injury. Additionally, he contends that the U.S. government has not adequately offered treatment and financial assistance for World War II disabilities. Simultaneously, Maharidge is preoccupied with the violence the Marines dispensed, particularly war crimes including raping and murdering of civilians, shooting of Japanese prisoners, and the taking of Japanese body parts as souvenirs. Most historical accounts of the Pacific War have avoided these topics, particularly because the evidence suggests that these actions were not condoned by the U.S. government and do not represent the actions of the majority of U.S. service men.
A major criticism is that in equating the imperialism and atrocities of Japan to those of the United States, the author fails to acknowledge any difference—even when his own evidence indicates major distinctions. For instance, the American officer whom Maharidge accuses of ordering the killing of prisoners is relieved of command; the American he charges to have raped an Okinawan girl is forced to shoot himself in the leg in order to escape arrest by U.S. military police; and the interviewed Okinawan veterans and civilians express appreciation to their American liberators. In contrast, the author spends little time describing the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers whose actions were indeed sanctioned by their government.
Depicting war as evil remains a valid ambition, yet the motives and the controls set for violence by the United States and Imperial Japan were distinctly different. While the evidence Maharidge presents is certainly of historical value, in his attempt to show “the other side of the good war,” he misses the most important context for the sacrifices of the United States in the Pacific. Americans and Asians both owe a debt of gratitude to his father, Steve Maharidge, and the Marines of L Company for the peace and prosperity enjoyed throughout the world today.
Langsdorff and the Battle of the River Plate
David Miller. South Yorkshire, UK: Pen and Sword Books, 2013. 190 pp. Illus. Maps. $39.99.
Reviewed by Andrew Lambert
David Miller’s Langsdorff and the Battle of the River Plate is the newest addition to the body of literary and cinematic work recounting the exploits of the Graf Spee and the Battle of the River Plate. The short career of the German Panzerschiff Graf Spee, including her commerce-raiding in the South Atlantic and Indian oceans, her battle with the British cruisers HMS Exeter, Achilles, and Ajax on 13 December 1939, her flight to Montevideo, and final scuttling four days later have been the subject of a 1956 feature film and many studies in Germany and Britain. Among the recent works in English, Eric Grove’s The Price of Disobedience: The Battle of the River Plate Reconsidered (Naval Institute Press, 2001) and Richard Woodman’s Battle of the River Plate: A Grand Delusion (Pen & Sword, 2008) are missing from Miller’s bibliography, a distinction they share with John Millington-Drake’s 1960 anthology and eyewitness account, although the latter is at least referenced.
The book’s section on German naval operations on the open seas during World War I, notably those of Admiral Graf von Spee, is pedestrian and misses the opportunity to link the man and the ship that carried his name. Not only did the German navy compile and publish a three-volume official history of these cruiser operations, but Admiral Erich Raeder, head of the Kriegsmarine in 1939, wrote the first volume. This long-term focus explained the evolution of afloat refueling and the 20,000-ton one-stop replenishment ships of the Altmark that made the extended cruise of the German warship possible. By contrast, sections on the technical specifications of the Graf Spee add nothing to existing studies and could have been reduced to free up space for more dramatic events that the title implies are the heart of the text. Instead, the battle with the British occupies a mere two-and-one-half pages, in which the British have little or no agency. British tactics are hardly addressed, and the narrative implies that the Exeter fought alone, only being relieved by her companions after being knocked out of action by 6 11-inch shell hits.
After the battle, the options of Captain H. W. Langsdorff, the commander of the Graf Spee, were severely limited: his oil- purifying plant had been wrecked by an 8-inch shell, as was the water distilling plant and the ship’s galley. He had little chance of making a passage back to Germany: The ship’s speed was cut to 21 or 22 knots due to fouling and engine problems, and she would be a sitting duck. When his gunnery officer reported that the battlecruiser HMS Renown and the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal were on the horizon, it was clear to Langsdorff that the game was up. The ships were nowhere near, but the arrival of the heavy cruiser HMS Cumberland two days after the battle settled the debate. The Graf Spee was too badly damaged to leave when the battle ended, and by the time her emergency repairs had been completed the British were ready and waiting. Langsdorff had been impressed by the courage and determination of British cruisers at Jutland; he was reminded of their resolve and realized they would fight to the finish. He had no choice but to scuttle, a decision the Führer adopted as his own.
The portrait of Langsdorff that emerges, at intervals across a text that tries to cover too many bases in such a small compass, is useful, and analysis of his decisions, although ponderous and constrained within bullet points, does clarify the options. The book ends with Langsdorff’s suicide, missing a major element of the story, one that calls into question the wisdom of the decision to scuttle. After the dust had settled, the British sent a technical mission, purchased the wreck of the Graf Spee through Uruguayan middle men, and salvaged key components of the German radar, armor, and fire-control systems. The ship finally slipped into the mud in 1950, but over the past few years her massive stern emblem, a Nazi eagle with swastika, was salvaged.
Throughout, the book suffers from a comprehensive failure of editorial oversight. Details that appear twice, like dates, are often inconsistent. Ship names are misspelled and places misnamed. While this would be usable text for readers entirely unfamiliar with the subject, there will be precious few of them, and they would be better served by Grove or Woodman, and watching Michael Powell’s charming old film.