Bell 204/205 UH-1 Helicopters in Vietnam. Helis.com
In Illumination Rounds, Michael Herr describes his experience as a war correspondent in-country during the Vietnam War. He does so through in-depth examinations of several brief moments that take place over an indeterminate amount of time. First he accounts his experiences aboard a Chinook transport helicopter, listening to the thunder of artillery shells exploding around the aircraft, watching a young man meet his unfortunate end as a shell penetrates the helicopter, directly striking him. Next he relates his time at the Continental Hotel, observing the men on leave, injured, scarred, permanently damaged by the war. He describes their mistresses as being “the saddest, prettiest girls in Vietnam” (330). In doing so he conveys in an instant why it is that the Vietnam War is recalled with a particular sense of dread by the American public. It was a conflict that not only left deep physical and psychological scars on a generation of young Americans, but a conflict that brought out the worst in America's military. In no war prior to or after Vietnam did American soldiers ever take mistresses from among the local population. In mentioning this ever so briefly, he aptly conveys why the Vietnam War is recalled with such a unique sense of dread. Finally he relates his experience listening to a cassette recording of Jimi Hendrix for the first time, while under fire in a rice paddy, and his experiences smoking marijuana and running cans of beer to surgeons in the province hospital at Can Tho.
Michael Herr is a former war correspondent and the author of a number of works on the Vietnam War. He is perhaps best known for Dispatches, a memoir of his time in Vietnam, from which Illumination Rounds is taken. Dispatches is considered to be “the best written about the Vietnam War” by The New York Times Book Review, and was reviewed as “the best book have ever read on men and war in our time” by novelist John Le Carré. He is also known for his work with Stanley Kubrick and Gustav Hasford on the acclaimed 1987 war drama Full Metal Jacket. He also contributed to the screenplay of Apocalypse Now, another classic American war film (Schultz). In addition to the fact that he is widely regarded as one of the best wartime writers of the modern era, the simple fact that he spent time in Vietnam during the American conflict there makes him a credible source for information on this time period and the event.
Herr enters Vietnam during the height of the American conflict there, and is at first unfamiliar with war on a first-hand basis and overcome by a feeling of simply being an observer, playing a passive role in the events taking place around him. He writes that he doesn’t feel as though the things happening around him (men dying, bullets being fired at him, injured civilians being carried past him) are actually happening to him. Instead he is merely observing them as an outsider. As time passes, however, Herr becomes more comfortable with the notion that he is as much a part of the Vietnam War as any enlisted Marine or Viet Cong soldier. As a result, his perspective and his writing style change over the course of Illumination Rounds.
To convey to the American public, whose perspective on the Vietnam War was often obscured by political bias and extreme movements on the home front, what it was actually like to be a soldier on the front lines of America’s most abhorred conflict.The American public had scarcely been provided with a first-hand, in-country account of the Vietnam War at the time of this essay’s publishing. The use of a first-person narrative helps to better convey the author’s feelings on the conflict he experienced. In addition, Herr’s use of stylistic alterations, such as the misspelling of words to convey a character’s accent, lend a greater sense of depth to the essay, as it allows the reader to experience action in the same way that the author did originally.
Using the aforementioned tactics, Herr is able to efficiently and aptly convey his message and achieve his purpose. In an essay of only a handful of pages, he manages to convey the entirety of what it was like to be an American in Vietnam during the famed conflict there. As an American who was not alive during the Vietnam War, and has only heard second-hand accounts in the form of novels, films, video games, and other forms of modern media about the conflict, Herr’s work allows me to gain some form of insight into the true nature of the Vietnam War, allowing me to experience it in a fashion similar to the way that the author did.
Works Cited
Schultz, Connie. "What It Was Like." Columbia Journalism Review. N.p., 9 Sept. 2010. Web. 03 Aug. 2014.
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