When speaking of the American military serviceman’s experience in Vietnam, it’s important to know that there were many vastly different combat tours, depending on where in the country one was stationed and when they served. An Army soldier “in the bush” down in the rice paddies of South Vietnam’s fertile flatlands in 1970 had a very different war than a Marine posted in the mountainous country close to the border with North Vietnam. This episode focuses on some of those very different experiences and the unique disadvantages they presented.

Check out this episode!

American Marines with their weapons.

Exploding white phosphorus—now banned for all but extreme uses under international law, “Willie-Pete” (as it was called) burned into one’s skin and kept burning into and through bones, with no way to extinguish it. 

Explosions of the other ‘signature’ American anti-personnel bomb—napalm. A jellied gasoline mixture that ignites and burns at extremely high temperature, napalm not only can reach entrenched enemy, it can also de-oxygenate the air around them and suffocate them. 

Show Notes:

ARVN—Army of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnamese troops). Outside of some elite units, the ARVN (sometimes contemptuously called “Marvin the ARVN,” was known for its timidity and poor leadership.

NVA—American military shorthand for “North Vietnamese Army,” the professionally trained and equipped regular troops that North Vietnam smuggled into South Vietnam to assist in overthrowing its government. Also known as PAVN, “People’s Army of Vietnam” as its own Communist government referred to it.

Viet Cong—local pejorative slang term for the South Vietnamese Communist fighters and guerrillas. They referred to themselves (and their own political wing) as the (slightly shortened in the English acronym) NLF, or “National Liberation Front,” or just “The Front.” Some historians insist on this moniker. I do not: the Viet Cong were incredibly tough and resilient fighters, but they were also a terror group that murdered even the government officials trying to do their best for poor South Vietnamese people, and often their families as well. They were indifferent to civilian casualties and sought to bring a government to Vietnam that held it in poverty and oppression for decades. ‘Viet Cong’ will do.Marines—to be distinguished in the American military from the Army and its soldiers. Marines are trained in amphibious warfare but are also shock troops that operate under a different branch and command structure. American Marines have long held a very high level of esprit de corps and community.

You can support the podcast by downloading on iTunes, subscribing, or making a donation. We love reviews and the Centurion reads every single one! Please share it on social media using the links at the bottom of this post. Thank You!

Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975 by Sir Max Hastings

I’m putting this first because it’s the best one-volume comprehensive history of the War I’ve read yet. Stanley Karnow has the older and more famous version, but he was a journalist with an axe to grind, and you can sense just from reading Sir Max that he was looking to provide a professional historian’s touch to a subject too often covered by journalists and amateurs that were emotionally and physically too close to the events. It’s not perfect, but I was very glad when it came out a few years ago.

Summons of the Trumpet: US-Vietnam in Perspective by Dave Richard Palmer

Palmer commanded an American armored battalion in Vietnam and later served as a military historian, teacher of history, and Superintendent of West Point.  Summons of the Trumpet was written three years after the fall of Saigon in an attempt to investigate the reasons for the American failure in Vietnam, especially when it so enthusiastically had answered the ‘summons of the trumpet’ as President Kennedy had put it in defending the free world from totalitarian communism. I inherited this book as a gift from the personal library of Roger Spiller (former Professor of Combat Studies at the Army Command and General Staff College) after his passing in 2017. I was delighted to discover his hand-written notes and marginalia in the book. Spiller was himself a respected authority on Vietnam and served as an advisor to Ken Burns on his comprehensive documentary on the War. Palmer’s book is the opposite of the Hastings volume: written from the perspective of an emotionally involved participant in the events, not long after their conclusion. It’s dated and has problems with bias, but Palmer tries hard to detach and to seek an honest and unflinching look at the war’s failure. It’s well-written and underrated.

Street Without Joy by Bernard Fall

Fall was a French war correspondent, historian, and political scientist with dual-American citizenship. Street Without Joy was first published in 1961 as a reflection on the French failure to learn from its mistakes or to cope with the Vietnamese insurgency in its own attempt to keep Vietnam as a colony. Fall was universally respected as a writer on Vietnam and mixed brutal honesty on the French shortcomings with a palpable admiration for the personal courage shown by the fighters on the ground from both sides. Fall was anti-communist and writes with something of the chauvinism you’d expect from a French patriot in this era, but this book is both compelling history and shocking in the accuracy of its warnings for the American government that was already shouldering more of the burden fighting the communists in Vietnam as he was writing it. Clearly no one involved in making key decisions for the American military involvement in Vietnam read this book or took it seriously. Fall himself continued his war reporting embedded with American units and was killed by a communist landmine in 1967.

The Dynamics of Defeat and Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning: the World of a Combat Division in Vietnam by Eric M. Bergerud

I was fortunate to receive both of these books as a part of the Spiller library mentioned earlier. Professor Bergerud is a history PhD from UC Berkeley and exhaustively researched the Vietnam War from the ground-up, interviewing many different infantrymen and examining mountains of documents pertaining to specific campaigns: here covering one province in South Vietnam and one American combat division over the course of the war, respectively. The perspective is useful as a counterpoint to ‘top-down’ histories that address the whole map but is also excellent in its own right as gripping human history. Bergerud makes clear that (among other things) the American effort in the Vietnamese countryside never had much, if any support from the regular people who made up over nine tenths of the population in South Vietnam, and therefore never had much of a chance in succeeding over the long term.  

To What End by Ward Just

Ward Just was an American war correspondent who went to Vietnam to report for the Washington Post in 1965. In this book, he captures the surreal absurdity of the American attempt to influence Vietnam in a series of hard-hitting vignettes. He covers life in urban Saigon and even life on an extremely dangerous mission with a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (from which he was lucky to escape). Just is clever, incisive, and darkly humorous. He left Vietnam in 1968 very skeptical that things would go well for the American war effort. He was largely correct.

Platoon Leader by James R. McDonough

The title here is explanatory. This short, hard-hitting book is a first person account of a new officer in combat, having to not only overcome the dangers presented by the enemy, but also the (near-lethal) initial distrust of his men and the onset of senseless tragedy having nothing to do with the enemy. It contains such an important perspective: the lieutenants that led platoons in Vietnam suffered inordinately high levels of casualties due to the Vietnamese targeting these men whenever possible to sow disorganization. The result was often that men who had barely graduated Officer Candidate School were flung into “the bush” to lead seasoned and (jaded) combat platoons. The men in these platoons were all vastly more experienced than the new officer who was supposed to lead them, and in many cases, older. Platoon leaders had to strike a precarious balance of taking the fight to the enemy aggressively ( their own bosses higher up the chain of command kept up a constant pressure for ‘body counts’) while simultaneously taking care of their men and winning their respect (when many of these same men had come to regard the war as hopeless and stupid). 

Kill Anything That Moves by Nick Turse

I really hesitate to include this, and urge anyone who reads it to not read this account exclusively. Turse is a journalist with an axe to grind, and this rarely makes for good history. He is eager to show that massacres of Vietnamese civilians were not isolated accidents or incidents, but part of a broader deliberate policy in place from the highest levels of American command. This premise is fundamentally flawed. I include the book anyway because it does detail real and widespread atrocities (a natural byproduct of counterinsurgency operations in which the enemy deliberately blends in with civilians). Unfortunately, nearly without exception, these atrocities were denied, swept under the rug, or otherwise covered up during investigations that rarely held anyone accountable. This is not only morally wrong, it’s poisonous to any real discussion of what war (and more specifically counterinsurgency) means for the soldiers who fight it. It’s not just the armed enemy who has to be dehumanized—it’s everyone “over there” to some degree, and even your own soldiers when they’re subjected to the constant stress of not knowing where death might come from or who might be responsible.

Chickenhawk by Robert Mason

The UH-1 Iroquois (nicknamed the “Huey”) was the iconic helicopter of the very first ‘helicopter’ war. America sent thousands of Hueys to Vietnam to participate in ‘airmobile’ assaults (in which units of US troops would be airlifted into attacks), ‘medevac’ rescues of wounded or pickups of slain troops, or alongside ‘gun runs’ in tandem with attack planes and other helicopters. Robert Mason flew Hueys in 1965-1966 and this first-hand account  describes his transition from bright-eyed young civilian to grizzled veteran pilot in unflinching detail. He participated heroically in the war’s first major action at Ia Drang (the battle pictured in the film We Were Soldiers) and from there vividly depicts the exhaustion, camaraderie, trauma, filth, exhilaration, and absurdity in the Vietnam helicopter pilot experience. Mason matter-of-factly relates harrowing moments like picking up his first load of American corpses, nearly getting blown up by landing in a minefield due to bad directions, flying 20 hours straight in the service of the legendary Hal Moore, a surreal sequence of trading racist insults (along with other pilots) with South Vietnamese officers in a base officer’s club, and his first bouts with PTSD. Mason makes no attempt to hide his own mistakes or make himself appear noble, which makes his account that much more believeable (including the more humorous scenes that seem to defy belief).  This is essential Vietnam reading.

We Were Soldiers Once… And Young by Lt. Gen. Harold G. More and Joseph Galloway

Co-written by both a battalion commander and a journalist embedded with his unit at the time of the events (and one of the only journalists to be given an award for bravery by the US military), this excellent book shows the United States Army at the height of its professional ability in 1965 and the tragic consequences when the differences between good leadership and bad leadership are allowed to manifest themselves on the battlefield. Don’t think of this book as just the ‘real story’ behind the famous Mel Gibson movie. Gibson’s film leaves out the horrors of the second day of the battle, in which one of Moore’s colleagues leads another American battalion right into the teeth of an ambush and the worst single day of American casualties in the entire war.

The Vietnam War: An Intimate History by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns

This was written to serve as a companion volume to the Ken Burns documentary series on the war. Aside from good writing, excellent photography, and a plethora of first-hand accounts by both American servicemen and Vietnamese who served on both sides, this book traces the origins and progress of the war poignantly through the experiences of the human beings who took part or at least suffered its consequences. It is analysis, visual history, and oral history in one. It has a thinly-veiled bias that many of the war’s veterans find offensive, but taken alongside other accounts it has a rightful place in your Vietnam reading.

Steel My Soldiers’ Hearts by Colonel David H. Hackworth

Aside: I LOVE the Shakespeare reference in the title! The late David Hackworth is a controversial figure in American military circles. Leaving that controversy aside, there is no disagreement on this fact: Hackworth was a highly effective battalion commander (and the most highly decorated soldier of his time) in Vietnam who undertook leadership of low-performing units and transformed them into high-performing units. This book details his time as commander of the 4th Battalion of the 39th Infantry and is a fascinating account of the very real morale and battlefield problems the Army was having in 1969 and how he undertook to solve them for his unit. There is a growing chorus of ‘revisionists’ who wish to detail how the war might have been won after all. While this is understandable in the constant back-and-forth of historical interpretation, none yet really qualify as ‘real’ historical works (ie at least attempting to present the argument as one that came from a conclusion after long investigation, rather than a starting point for cherrypicking the evidence that seems to fit). Hackworth’s book gives us small, zoomed-in view of one way in which it might have been possible in certain specific circumstances, with a change in leadership approach and attitude. We can’t know how things might have worked out in the bigger picture with the ‘right’ people in the ‘right’ positions, but after reading Hackworth’s experience, it’s hard not to imagine the possibilities.

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes

In my research/reading for this series, I wanted a book that captured a Marine infantryman’s experience in Vietnam. Although I planned on reading both this and Phillip Caputo’s A Rumor of War, I settled on this one. (I’ll get to Caputo!) This book as as remarkable as its author (A Rhodes Scholar who turned down an easy way to avoid service in Vietnam and instead led men in combat and was awarded the Navy Cross for bravery). You can feel the jungle climate, the camaraderie/tension between the men (this book specifically explores racial tension as a result of the burgeoning civil rights movement in the US), the grind of long marches in which little happens but tragedy somehow still occurs. You perceive the qualities that got men promoted justly within the officer ranks (or unjustly!) alongside the infuriating stubbornness or stupidity of those same men. Scenes and personalities from this book really stuck with me.

The Education of Corporal John Musgrave: Vietnam and its Aftermath  by John Musgrave

This one came along late in my process, and even though I already had the Marine infantryman ‘covered,’ it was hard to ignore as it stood there proudly in the “Local Authors” section of my bookstore. I took it as a sign to grab one more book for this series and I’m glad I did. While Marlantes vividly depicted Marine grunt life in Vietnam, it was in novel form, beginning and ending during deployment. Musgrave begins at the end: the permanently disabled vet with deep memories and little money, going back to Camp Pendleton for some reflection and reminiscence. From there we get the whole story in biographical form, from young Marine getting his ass kicked in his first bar fight to jaded war veteran protesting on college campuses. Musgrave is so interesting because while he resents the way he and his comrades were used in Vietnam, he clearly is still proud of his service and his membership in the Corps. While he owns his participation in anti-war protests, he makes clear he never really felt like he was ‘one’ of them. We follow Musgrave the whole way because he’s a real human being: always questioning and never really giving himself over to the Group. Good stuff (and his survival story is absolutely crazy).

Across the Fence by John Stryker Meyer

I hesitated to include this one: Meyer’s experience in Vietnam represented a very small and specific body of combat troops on very atypical missions. Could it really be considered essential reading for someone seeking a broad understanding of the war? Bu then I thought: Meyer’s unit (as you will see if you read even one of this book’s remarkable stories) required a level of bravery that approached total insanity. MACV-SOG teams were secretly (and technically illegally) planted inside of Vietnam’s neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia to disrupt and interdict the constant stream of supplies and troops being sent through those countries (in blatant violation of international law) to assist in the Communist takeover of Vietnam.  These units suffered casualties of greater than 100 percent (due to members being wounded multiple times over missions) and were never publicly recognized for their courage due to the secret nature of their mission. In an era in which it can be hard to believe in real heroes, reading about the members of MACV-SOG reminds that every war has its pure warriors for whom “uncommon valor is a common virtue.”

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

I taught this book as a high school English teacher here in Kansas. When I first saw it on our curriculum list, I cringed: my memory of it from reading it in high school was not good. My teacher had focused on everything “anti-war” in it that she could, and indeed the most famous chapters of this book (a novel written not in linear style, but in a series of vignettes based on the author’s lived experience) are the overtly anti-war chapters. When I re-read it, the chapters that really stood out to me were the more ambiguous ones. The book still kind of devolves in the last couple of chapters into O’Brien wallowing in what seems to be self-pity, but there is incredible writing here, and I think anyone who seeks an understanding of the unwilling combat grunt (because we did conscript a whole lot of them, for the last time in our history) should read this book! 

The Gun by C.J. Chivers

While this book is not technically about Vietnam, it is enormously important to understanding something intrinsic to the experience of the infantrymen on both sides fighting it. In short: the M16, the lauded new product of American manufacture and iconic American infantry weapon of the war, started out as a piece of junk. By contrast, the AK-47, the product of the planned Soviet economy that had ruined the lives of so many of its citizens, was somehow the finest weapon of its time by a large margin. How this was possible, and the history of how new arms made their way into American manufacture, is fascinating and often ridiculous. Chivers does a good job bringing that story to life.

This is not an exhaustive list. There are more accounts on my own list to read, including:

Fields of Fire by James Webb

A Rumor of War by Phillip Caputo

Beyond the Call of Duty by Stephen L. Moore

A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan

Embers of War by Frederik Logevall

Tiger Force by Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss

and others I have yet to discover, receive, or hear about through suggestion.

In 1965, the United States appeared to be “in it to win it.” The trouble was, nobody knew what a
winning outcome would look like. The government of South Vietnam was hopelessly corrupt and made up of landlords that simply stepped into the exploitative French system that came before them. Capturing territory meant nothing, because the enemy fled and then returned as soon as American troops went somewhere else to search for them. The civilian government in Washington handcuffed decisive measures like invading North Vietnam for fear of a wider conflict with China and the Soviet Union. What remained: to kill as many of the enemy as possible, wherever they could be found, and keep killing until they gave up.

Check out this episode!

You can support the podcast by downloading on iTunes, subscribing, or making a donation. We love reviews and the Centurion reads every single one! Please share it on social media using the links at the bottom of this post. Thank You!

Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975 by Sir Max Hastings

I’m putting this first because it’s the best one-volume comprehensive history of the War I’ve read yet. Stanley Karnow has the older and more famous version, but he was a journalist with an axe to grind, and you can sense just from reading Sir Max that he was looking to provide a professional historian’s touch to a subject too often covered by journalists and amateurs that were emotionally and physically too close to the events. It’s not perfect, but I was very glad when it came out a few years ago.

Summons of the Trumpet: US-Vietnam in Perspective by Dave Richard Palmer

Palmer commanded an American armored battalion in Vietnam and later served as a military historian, teacher of history, and Superintendent of West Point.  Summons of the Trumpet was written three years after the fall of Saigon in an attempt to investigate the reasons for the American failure in Vietnam, especially when it so enthusiastically had answered the ‘summons of the trumpet’ as President Kennedy had put it in defending the free world from totalitarian communism. I inherited this book as a gift from the personal library of Roger Spiller (former Professor of Combat Studies at the Army Command and General Staff College) after his passing in 2017. I was delighted to discover his hand-written notes and marginalia in the book. Spiller was himself a respected authority on Vietnam and served as an advisor to Ken Burns on his comprehensive documentary on the War. Palmer’s book is the opposite of the Hastings volume: written from the perspective of an emotionally involved participant in the events, not long after their conclusion. It’s dated and has problems with bias, but Palmer tries hard to detach and to seek an honest and unflinching look at the war’s failure. It’s well-written and underrated.

Street Without Joy by Bernard Fall

Fall was a French war correspondent, historian, and political scientist with dual-American citizenship. Street Without Joy was first published in 1961 as a reflection on the French failure to learn from its mistakes or to cope with the Vietnamese insurgency in its own attempt to keep Vietnam as a colony. Fall was universally respected as a writer on Vietnam and mixed brutal honesty on the French shortcomings with a palpable admiration for the personal courage shown by the fighters on the ground from both sides. Fall was anti-communist and writes with something of the chauvinism you’d expect from a French patriot in this era, but this book is both compelling history and shocking in the accuracy of its warnings for the American government that was already shouldering more of the burden fighting the communists in Vietnam as he was writing it. Clearly no one involved in making key decisions for the American military involvement in Vietnam read this book or took it seriously. Fall himself continued his war reporting embedded with American units and was killed by a communist landmine in 1967.

The Dynamics of Defeat and Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning: the World of a Combat Division in Vietnam by Eric M. Bergerud

I was fortunate to receive both of these books as a part of the Spiller library mentioned earlier. Professor Bergerud is a history PhD from UC Berkeley and exhaustively researched the Vietnam War from the ground-up, interviewing many different infantrymen and examining mountains of documents pertaining to specific campaigns: here covering one province in South Vietnam and one American combat division over the course of the war, respectively. The perspective is useful as a counterpoint to ‘top-down’ histories that address the whole map but is also excellent in its own right as gripping human history. Bergerud makes clear that (among other things) the American effort in the Vietnamese countryside never had much, if any support from the regular people who made up over nine tenths of the population in South Vietnam, and therefore never had much of a chance in succeeding over the long term.  

To What End by Ward Just

Ward Just was an American war correspondent who went to Vietnam to report for the Washington Post in 1965. In this book, he captures the surreal absurdity of the American attempt to influence Vietnam in a series of hard-hitting vignettes. He covers life in urban Saigon and even life on an extremely dangerous mission with a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (from which he was lucky to escape). Just is clever, incisive, and darkly humorous. He left Vietnam in 1968 very skeptical that things would go well for the American war effort. He was largely correct.

Platoon Leader by James R. McDonough

The title here is explanatory. This short, hard-hitting book is a first person account of a new officer in combat, having to not only overcome the dangers presented by the enemy, but also the (near-lethal) initial distrust of his men and the onset of senseless tragedy having nothing to do with the enemy. It contains such an important perspective: the lieutenants that led platoons in Vietnam suffered inordinately high levels of casualties due to the Vietnamese targeting these men whenever possible to sow disorganization. The result was often that men who had barely graduated Officer Candidate School were flung into “the bush” to lead seasoned and (jaded) combat platoons. The men in these platoons were all vastly more experienced than the new officer who was supposed to lead them, and in many cases, older. Platoon leaders had to strike a precarious balance of taking the fight to the enemy aggressively ( their own bosses higher up the chain of command kept up a constant pressure for ‘body counts’) while simultaneously taking care of their men and winning their respect (when many of these same men had come to regard the war as hopeless and stupid). 

Kill Anything That Moves by Nick Turse

I really hesitate to include this, and urge anyone who reads it to not read this account exclusively. Turse is a journalist with an axe to grind, and this rarely makes for good history. He is eager to show that massacres of Vietnamese civilians were not isolated accidents or incidents, but part of a broader deliberate policy in place from the highest levels of American command. This premise is fundamentally flawed. I include the book anyway because it does detail real and widespread atrocities (a natural byproduct of counterinsurgency operations in which the enemy deliberately blends in with civilians). Unfortunately, nearly without exception, these atrocities were denied, swept under the rug, or otherwise covered up during investigations that rarely held anyone accountable. This is not only morally wrong, it’s poisonous to any real discussion of what war (and more specifically counterinsurgency) means for the soldiers who fight it. It’s not just the armed enemy who has to be dehumanized—it’s everyone “over there” to some degree, and even your own soldiers when they’re subjected to the constant stress of not knowing where death might come from or who might be responsible.

Chickenhawk by Robert Mason

The UH-1 Iroquois (nicknamed the “Huey”) was the iconic helicopter of the very first ‘helicopter’ war. America sent thousands of Hueys to Vietnam to participate in ‘airmobile’ assaults (in which units of US troops would be airlifted into attacks), ‘medevac’ rescues of wounded or pickups of slain troops, or alongside ‘gun runs’ in tandem with attack planes and other helicopters. Robert Mason flew Hueys in 1965-1966 and this first-hand account  describes his transition from bright-eyed young civilian to grizzled veteran pilot in unflinching detail. He participated heroically in the war’s first major action at Ia Drang (the battle pictured in the film We Were Soldiers) and from there vividly depicts the exhaustion, camaraderie, trauma, filth, exhilaration, and absurdity in the Vietnam helicopter pilot experience. Mason matter-of-factly relates harrowing moments like picking up his first load of American corpses, nearly getting blown up by landing in a minefield due to bad directions, flying 20 hours straight in the service of the legendary Hal Moore, a surreal sequence of trading racist insults (along with other pilots) with South Vietnamese officers in a base officer’s club, and his first bouts with PTSD. Mason makes no attempt to hide his own mistakes or make himself appear noble, which makes his account that much more believeable (including the more humorous scenes that seem to defy belief).  This is essential Vietnam reading.

We Were Soldiers Once… And Young by Lt. Gen. Harold G. More and Joseph Galloway

Co-written by both a battalion commander and a journalist embedded with his unit at the time of the events (and one of the only journalists to be given an award for bravery by the US military), this excellent book shows the United States Army at the height of its professional ability in 1965 and the tragic consequences when the differences between good leadership and bad leadership are allowed to manifest themselves on the battlefield. Don’t think of this book as just the ‘real story’ behind the famous Mel Gibson movie. Gibson’s film leaves out the horrors of the second day of the battle, in which one of Moore’s colleagues leads another American battalion right into the teeth of an ambush and the worst single day of American casualties in the entire war.

The Vietnam War: An Intimate History by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns

This was written to serve as a companion volume to the Ken Burns documentary series on the war. Aside from good writing, excellent photography, and a plethora of first-hand accounts by both American servicemen and Vietnamese who served on both sides, this book traces the origins and progress of the war poignantly through the experiences of the human beings who took part or at least suffered its consequences. It is analysis, visual history, and oral history in one. It has a thinly-veiled bias that many of the war’s veterans find offensive, but taken alongside other accounts it has a rightful place in your Vietnam reading.

Steel My Soldiers’ Hearts by Colonel David H. Hackworth

Aside: I LOVE the Shakespeare reference in the title! The late David Hackworth is a controversial figure in American military circles. Leaving that controversy aside, there is no disagreement on this fact: Hackworth was a highly effective battalion commander (and the most highly decorated soldier of his time) in Vietnam who undertook leadership of low-performing units and transformed them into high-performing units. This book details his time as commander of the 4th Battalion of the 39th Infantry and is a fascinating account of the very real morale and battlefield problems the Army was having in 1969 and how he undertook to solve them for his unit. There is a growing chorus of ‘revisionists’ who wish to detail how the war might have been won after all. While this is understandable in the constant back-and-forth of historical interpretation, none yet really qualify as ‘real’ historical works (ie at least attempting to present the argument as one that came from a conclusion after long investigation, rather than a starting point for cherrypicking the evidence that seems to fit). Hackworth’s book gives us small, zoomed-in view of one way in which it might have been possible in certain specific circumstances, with a change in leadership approach and attitude. We can’t know how things might have worked out in the bigger picture with the ‘right’ people in the ‘right’ positions, but after reading Hackworth’s experience, it’s hard not to imagine the possibilities.

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes

In my research/reading for this series, I wanted a book that captured a Marine infantryman’s experience in Vietnam. Although I planned on reading both this and Phillip Caputo’s A Rumor of War, I settled on this one. (I’ll get to Caputo!) This book as as remarkable as its author (A Rhodes Scholar who turned down an easy way to avoid service in Vietnam and instead led men in combat and was awarded the Navy Cross for bravery). You can feel the jungle climate, the camaraderie/tension between the men (this book specifically explores racial tension as a result of the burgeoning civil rights movement in the US), the grind of long marches in which little happens but tragedy somehow still occurs. You perceive the qualities that got men promoted justly within the officer ranks (or unjustly!) alongside the infuriating stubbornness or stupidity of those same men. Scenes and personalities from this book really stuck with me.

The Education of Corporal John Musgrave: Vietnam and its Aftermath  by John Musgrave

This one came along late in my process, and even though I already had the Marine infantryman ‘covered,’ it was hard to ignore as it stood there proudly in the “Local Authors” section of my bookstore. I took it as a sign to grab one more book for this series and I’m glad I did. While Marlantes vividly depicted Marine grunt life in Vietnam, it was in novel form, beginning and ending during deployment. Musgrave begins at the end: the permanently disabled vet with deep memories and little money, going back to Camp Pendleton for some reflection and reminiscence. From there we get the whole story in biographical form, from young Marine getting his ass kicked in his first bar fight to jaded war veteran protesting on college campuses. Musgrave is so interesting because while he resents the way he and his comrades were used in Vietnam, he clearly is still proud of his service and his membership in the Corps. While he owns his participation in anti-war protests, he makes clear he never really felt like he was ‘one’ of them. We follow Musgrave the whole way because he’s a real human being: always questioning and never really giving himself over to the Group. Good stuff (and his survival story is absolutely crazy).

Across the Fence by John Stryker Meyer

I hesitated to include this one: Meyer’s experience in Vietnam represented a very small and specific body of combat troops on very atypical missions. Could it really be considered essential reading for someone seeking a broad understanding of the war? Bu then I thought: Meyer’s unit (as you will see if you read even one of this book’s remarkable stories) required a level of bravery that approached total insanity. MACV-SOG teams were secretly (and technically illegally) planted inside of Vietnam’s neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia to disrupt and interdict the constant stream of supplies and troops being sent through those countries (in blatant violation of international law) to assist in the Communist takeover of Vietnam.  These units suffered casualties of greater than 100 percent (due to members being wounded multiple times over missions) and were never publicly recognized for their courage due to the secret nature of their mission. In an era in which it can be hard to believe in real heroes, reading about the members of MACV-SOG reminds that every war has its pure warriors for whom “uncommon valor is a common virtue.”

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

I taught this book as a high school English teacher here in Kansas. When I first saw it on our curriculum list, I cringed: my memory of it from reading it in high school was not good. My teacher had focused on everything “anti-war” in it that she could, and indeed the most famous chapters of this book (a novel written not in linear style, but in a series of vignettes based on the author’s lived experience) are the overtly anti-war chapters. When I re-read it, the chapters that really stood out to me were the more ambiguous ones. The book still kind of devolves in the last couple of chapters into O’Brien wallowing in what seems to be self-pity, but there is incredible writing here, and I think anyone who seeks an understanding of the unwilling combat grunt (because we did conscript a whole lot of them, for the last time in our history) should read this book! 

The Gun by C.J. Chivers

While this book is not technically about Vietnam, it is enormously important to understanding something intrinsic to the experience of the infantrymen on both sides fighting it. In short: the M16, the lauded new product of American manufacture and iconic American infantry weapon of the war, started out as a piece of junk. By contrast, the AK-47, the product of the planned Soviet economy that had ruined the lives of so many of its citizens, was somehow the finest weapon of its time by a large margin. How this was possible, and the history of how new arms made their way into American manufacture, is fascinating and often ridiculous. Chivers does a good job bringing that story to life.

This is not an exhaustive list. There are more accounts on my own list to read, including:

Fields of Fire by James Webb

A Rumor of War by Phillip Caputo

Beyond the Call of Duty by Stephen L. Moore

A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan

Embers of War by Frederik Logevall

Tiger Force by Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss

and others I have yet to discover, receive, or hear about through suggestion.

In 1965, American President Lyndon Baines Johnson deploys large numbers of American troops to Vietnam for the first time. Massive naval installations and airbases are built in the name of defending South Vietnam from attack. But the enemy moves like water to the weakest points and the most opportune times to strike. America needs to go on offense, despite knowing very little about the terrain, climate, or people…

Check out this episode!

Ngo Dinh Diem: corrupt, autocratic, anti-communist, proud Vietnamese nationalist, strategic ally of the United States but totally unwilling to democratically reform. He was assassinated with the tacit approval of the United States in 1963, but the subsequent two years would show there were no other suitable alternatives.

CBS news reporter Morley Safer broadcasts live from a burning Vietnamese village and interviews unrepentant Marines, who resent how local civilians hide, feed, and shelter enemy guerrillas. The American public gets some of its first real looks at the ambiguity of the situation in Vietnam. Any American Marines who thought they were being sent to simply liberate an oppressed people quickly have their illusions shattered.

Patrolling in rural areas was difficult: extreme heat, heavy gear, river crossings, and booby-traps made catching the enemy nearly impossible.

Show Notes:

ARVN—Army of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnamese troops). Outside of some elite units, the ARVN (sometimes contemptuously called “Marvin the ARVN,” was known for its timidity and poor leadership.

NVA—American military shorthand for “North Vietnamese Army,” the professionally trained and equipped regular troops that North Vietnam smuggled into South Vietnam to assist in overthrowing its government. Also known as PAVN, “People’s Army of Vietnam” as its own Communist government referred to it.

Viet Cong—local pejorative slang term for the South Vietnamese Communist fighters and guerrillas. They referred to themselves (and their own political wing) as the (slightly shortened in the English acronym) NLF, or “National Liberation Front,” or just “The Front.” Some historians insist on this moniker. I do not: the Viet Cong were incredibly tough and resilient fighters, but they were also a terror group that murdered even the government officials trying to do their best for poor South Vietnamese people, and often their families as well. They were indifferent to civilian casualties and sought to bring a government to Vietnam that held it in poverty and oppression for decades. ‘Viet Cong’ will do.

Marines—to be distinguished in the American military from the Army and its soldiers. Marines are trained in amphibious warfare but are also shock troops that operate under a different branch and command structure. American Marines have long held a very high level of esprit de corps and community.

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Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975 by Sir Max Hastings

I’m putting this first because it’s the best one-volume comprehensive history of the War I’ve read yet. Stanley Karnow has the older and more famous version, but he was a journalist with an axe to grind, and you can sense just from reading Sir Max that he was looking to provide a professional historian’s touch to a subject too often covered by journalists and amateurs that were emotionally and physically too close to the events. It’s not perfect, but I was very glad when it came out a few years ago.

Summons of the Trumpet: US-Vietnam in Perspective by Dave Richard Palmer

Palmer commanded an American armored battalion in Vietnam and later served as a military historian, teacher of history, and Superintendent of West Point.  Summons of the Trumpet was written three years after the fall of Saigon in an attempt to investigate the reasons for the American failure in Vietnam, especially when it so enthusiastically had answered the ‘summons of the trumpet’ as President Kennedy had put it in defending the free world from totalitarian communism. I inherited this book as a gift from the personal library of Roger Spiller (former Professor of Combat Studies at the Army Command and General Staff College) after his passing in 2017. I was delighted to discover his hand-written notes and marginalia in the book. Spiller was himself a respected authority on Vietnam and served as an advisor to Ken Burns on his comprehensive documentary on the War. Palmer’s book is the opposite of the Hastings volume: written from the perspective of an emotionally involved participant in the events, not long after their conclusion. It’s dated and has problems with bias, but Palmer tries hard to detach and to seek an honest and unflinching look at the war’s failure. It’s well-written and underrated.

Street Without Joy by Bernard Fall

Fall was a French war correspondent, historian, and political scientist with dual-American citizenship. Street Without Joy was first published in 1961 as a reflection on the French failure to learn from its mistakes or to cope with the Vietnamese insurgency in its own attempt to keep Vietnam as a colony. Fall was universally respected as a writer on Vietnam and mixed brutal honesty on the French shortcomings with a palpable admiration for the personal courage shown by the fighters on the ground from both sides. Fall was anti-communist and writes with something of the chauvinism you’d expect from a French patriot in this era, but this book is both compelling history and shocking in the accuracy of its warnings for the American government that was already shouldering more of the burden fighting the communists in Vietnam as he was writing it. Clearly no one involved in making key decisions for the American military involvement in Vietnam read this book or took it seriously. Fall himself continued his war reporting embedded with American units and was killed by a communist landmine in 1967.

The Dynamics of Defeat and Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning: the World of a Combat Division in Vietnam by Eric M. Bergerud

I was fortunate to receive both of these books as a part of the Spiller library mentioned earlier. Professor Bergerud is a history PhD from UC Berkeley and exhaustively researched the Vietnam War from the ground-up, interviewing many different infantrymen and examining mountains of documents pertaining to specific campaigns: here covering one province in South Vietnam and one American combat division over the course of the war, respectively. The perspective is useful as a counterpoint to ‘top-down’ histories that address the whole map but is also excellent in its own right as gripping human history. Bergerud makes clear that (among other things) the American effort in the Vietnamese countryside never had much, if any support from the regular people who made up over nine tenths of the population in South Vietnam, and therefore never had much of a chance in succeeding over the long term.  

To What End by Ward Just

Ward Just was an American war correspondent who went to Vietnam to report for the Washington Post in 1965. In this book, he captures the surreal absurdity of the American attempt to influence Vietnam in a series of hard-hitting vignettes. He covers life in urban Saigon and even life on an extremely dangerous mission with a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (from which he was lucky to escape). Just is clever, incisive, and darkly humorous. He left Vietnam in 1968 very skeptical that things would go well for the American war effort. He was largely correct.

Platoon Leader by James R. McDonough

The title here is explanatory. This short, hard-hitting book is a first person account of a new officer in combat, having to not only overcome the dangers presented by the enemy, but also the (near-lethal) initial distrust of his men and the onset of senseless tragedy having nothing to do with the enemy. It contains such an important perspective: the lieutenants that led platoons in Vietnam suffered inordinately high levels of casualties due to the Vietnamese targeting these men whenever possible to sow disorganization. The result was often that men who had barely graduated Officer Candidate School were flung into “the bush” to lead seasoned and (jaded) combat platoons. The men in these platoons were all vastly more experienced than the new officer who was supposed to lead them, and in many cases, older. Platoon leaders had to strike a precarious balance of taking the fight to the enemy aggressively ( their own bosses higher up the chain of command kept up a constant pressure for ‘body counts’) while simultaneously taking care of their men and winning their respect (when many of these same men had come to regard the war as hopeless and stupid). 

Kill Anything That Moves by Nick Turse

I really hesitate to include this, and urge anyone who reads it to not read this account exclusively. Turse is a journalist with an axe to grind, and this rarely makes for good history. He is eager to show that massacres of Vietnamese civilians were not isolated accidents or incidents, but part of a broader deliberate policy in place from the highest levels of American command. This premise is fundamentally flawed. I include the book anyway because it does detail real and widespread atrocities (a natural byproduct of counterinsurgency operations in which the enemy deliberately blends in with civilians). Unfortunately, nearly without exception, these atrocities were denied, swept under the rug, or otherwise covered up during investigations that rarely held anyone accountable. This is not only morally wrong, it’s poisonous to any real discussion of what war (and more specifically counterinsurgency) means for the soldiers who fight it. It’s not just the armed enemy who has to be dehumanized—it’s everyone “over there” to some degree, and even your own soldiers when they’re subjected to the constant stress of not knowing where death might come from or who might be responsible.

Chickenhawk by Robert Mason

The UH-1 Iroquois (nicknamed the “Huey”) was the iconic helicopter of the very first ‘helicopter’ war. America sent thousands of Hueys to Vietnam to participate in ‘airmobile’ assaults (in which units of US troops would be airlifted into attacks), ‘medevac’ rescues of wounded or pickups of slain troops, or alongside ‘gun runs’ in tandem with attack planes and other helicopters. Robert Mason flew Hueys in 1965-1966 and this first-hand account  describes his transition from bright-eyed young civilian to grizzled veteran pilot in unflinching detail. He participated heroically in the war’s first major action at Ia Drang (the battle pictured in the film We Were Soldiers) and from there vividly depicts the exhaustion, camaraderie, trauma, filth, exhilaration, and absurdity in the Vietnam helicopter pilot experience. Mason matter-of-factly relates harrowing moments like picking up his first load of American corpses, nearly getting blown up by landing in a minefield due to bad directions, flying 20 hours straight in the service of the legendary Hal Moore, a surreal sequence of trading racist insults (along with other pilots) with South Vietnamese officers in a base officer’s club, and his first bouts with PTSD. Mason makes no attempt to hide his own mistakes or make himself appear noble, which makes his account that much more believeable (including the more humorous scenes that seem to defy belief).  This is essential Vietnam reading.

We Were Soldiers Once… And Young by Lt. Gen. Harold G. More and Joseph Galloway

Co-written by both a battalion commander and a journalist embedded with his unit at the time of the events (and one of the only journalists to be given an award for bravery by the US military), this excellent book shows the United States Army at the height of its professional ability in 1965 and the tragic consequences when the differences between good leadership and bad leadership are allowed to manifest themselves on the battlefield. Don’t think of this book as just the ‘real story’ behind the famous Mel Gibson movie. Gibson’s film leaves out the horrors of the second day of the battle, in which one of Moore’s colleagues leads another American battalion right into the teeth of an ambush and the worst single day of American casualties in the entire war.

The Vietnam War: An Intimate History by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns

This was written to serve as a companion volume to the Ken Burns documentary series on the war. Aside from good writing, excellent photography, and a plethora of first-hand accounts by both American servicemen and Vietnamese who served on both sides, this book traces the origins and progress of the war poignantly through the experiences of the human beings who took part or at least suffered its consequences. It is analysis, visual history, and oral history in one. It has a thinly-veiled bias that many of the war’s veterans find offensive, but taken alongside other accounts it has a rightful place in your Vietnam reading.

Steel My Soldiers’ Hearts by Colonel David H. Hackworth

Aside: I LOVE the Shakespeare reference in the title! The late David Hackworth is a controversial figure in American military circles. Leaving that controversy aside, there is no disagreement on this fact: Hackworth was a highly effective battalion commander (and the most highly decorated soldier of his time) in Vietnam who undertook leadership of low-performing units and transformed them into high-performing units. This book details his time as commander of the 4th Battalion of the 39th Infantry and is a fascinating account of the very real morale and battlefield problems the Army was having in 1969 and how he undertook to solve them for his unit. There is a growing chorus of ‘revisionists’ who wish to detail how the war might have been won after all. While this is understandable in the constant back-and-forth of historical interpretation, none yet really qualify as ‘real’ historical works (ie at least attempting to present the argument as one that came from a conclusion after long investigation, rather than a starting point for cherrypicking the evidence that seems to fit). Hackworth’s book gives us small, zoomed-in view of one way in which it might have been possible in certain specific circumstances, with a change in leadership approach and attitude. We can’t know how things might have worked out in the bigger picture with the ‘right’ people in the ‘right’ positions, but after reading Hackworth’s experience, it’s hard not to imagine the possibilities.

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes

In my research/reading for this series, I wanted a book that captured a Marine infantryman’s experience in Vietnam. Although I planned on reading both this and Phillip Caputo’s A Rumor of War, I settled on this one. (I’ll get to Caputo!) This book as as remarkable as its author (A Rhodes Scholar who turned down an easy way to avoid service in Vietnam and instead led men in combat and was awarded the Navy Cross for bravery). You can feel the jungle climate, the camaraderie/tension between the men (this book specifically explores racial tension as a result of the burgeoning civil rights movement in the US), the grind of long marches in which little happens but tragedy somehow still occurs. You perceive the qualities that got men promoted justly within the officer ranks (or unjustly!) alongside the infuriating stubbornness or stupidity of those same men. Scenes and personalities from this book really stuck with me.

The Education of Corporal John Musgrave: Vietnam and its Aftermath  by John Musgrave

This one came along late in my process, and even though I already had the Marine infantryman ‘covered,’ it was hard to ignore as it stood there proudly in the “Local Authors” section of my bookstore. I took it as a sign to grab one more book for this series and I’m glad I did. While Marlantes vividly depicted Marine grunt life in Vietnam, it was in novel form, beginning and ending during deployment. Musgrave begins at the end: the permanently disabled vet with deep memories and little money, going back to Camp Pendleton for some reflection and reminiscence. From there we get the whole story in biographical form, from young Marine getting his ass kicked in his first bar fight to jaded war veteran protesting on college campuses. Musgrave is so interesting because while he resents the way he and his comrades were used in Vietnam, he clearly is still proud of his service and his membership in the Corps. While he owns his participation in anti-war protests, he makes clear he never really felt like he was ‘one’ of them. We follow Musgrave the whole way because he’s a real human being: always questioning and never really giving himself over to the Group. Good stuff (and his survival story is absolutely crazy).

Across the Fence by John Stryker Meyer

I hesitated to include this one: Meyer’s experience in Vietnam represented a very small and specific body of combat troops on very atypical missions. Could it really be considered essential reading for someone seeking a broad understanding of the war? Bu then I thought: Meyer’s unit (as you will see if you read even one of this book’s remarkable stories) required a level of bravery that approached total insanity. MACV-SOG teams were secretly (and technically illegally) planted inside of Vietnam’s neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia to disrupt and interdict the constant stream of supplies and troops being sent through those countries (in blatant violation of international law) to assist in the Communist takeover of Vietnam.  These units suffered casualties of greater than 100 percent (due to members being wounded multiple times over missions) and were never publicly recognized for their courage due to the secret nature of their mission. In an era in which it can be hard to believe in real heroes, reading about the members of MACV-SOG reminds that every war has its pure warriors for whom “uncommon valor is a common virtue.”

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

I taught this book as a high school English teacher here in Kansas. When I first saw it on our curriculum list, I cringed: my memory of it from reading it in high school was not good. My teacher had focused on everything “anti-war” in it that she could, and indeed the most famous chapters of this book (a novel written not in linear style, but in a series of vignettes based on the author’s lived experience) are the overtly anti-war chapters. When I re-read it, the chapters that really stood out to me were the more ambiguous ones. The book still kind of devolves in the last couple of chapters into O’Brien wallowing in what seems to be self-pity, but there is incredible writing here, and I think anyone who seeks an understanding of the unwilling combat grunt (because we did conscript a whole lot of them, for the last time in our history) should read this book! 

The Gun by C.J. Chivers

While this book is not technically about Vietnam, it is enormously important to understanding something intrinsic to the experience of the infantrymen on both sides fighting it. In short: the M16, the lauded new product of American manufacture and iconic American infantry weapon of the war, started out as a piece of junk. By contrast, the AK-47, the product of the planned Soviet economy that had ruined the lives of so many of its citizens, was somehow the finest weapon of its time by a large margin. How this was possible, and the history of how new arms made their way into American manufacture, is fascinating and often ridiculous. Chivers does a good job bringing that story to life.

This is not an exhaustive list. There are more accounts on my own list to read, including:

Fields of Fire by James Webb

A Rumor of War by Phillip Caputo

Beyond the Call of Duty by Stephen L. Moore

A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan

Embers of War by Frederik Logevall

Tiger Force by Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss

and others I have yet to discover, receive, or hear about through suggestion.

 In Part 2, I cover the speech itself, line by line, why it’s remarkable all by itself and why its legacy is even more so. It is hard to understate the impact of Lincoln himself and this speech in particular on how America still remembers the war and why it was fought.

Check out this episode!

• Lincoln delivering the speech at the newly-built (and still unfinished) cemetery
• A photograph of the bustle on speech day
• Gettysburg National Cemetery, Pennsylvania

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Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America

A definitive modern breakdown of the circumstances of the speech, the rhetorical history that inspired it, the location of the speech on the battlefield, and (of course) an analysis of the text.

Many of us in America know a few phrases of it here and there because we all had to read it in
high school. We know it was a good speech, totally reaffirming freedom while honoring war dead, yadda
yadda. But lost in the cliches is how significant it was that Lincoln was able to make such a speech at
such a time, and make it stick. He had a LOT riding against people even taking the speech seriously, let
alone holding it up later as an example of everything America stands for. In part 1, I explain why.

Check out this episode!

• Lincoln delivering the speech at the newly-built (and still unfinished) cemetery
• A photograph of the bustle on speech day
• Gettysburg National Cemetery, Pennsylvania

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Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America

A definitive modern breakdown of the circumstances of the speech, the rhetorical history that inspired it, the location of the speech on the battlefield, and (of course) an analysis of the text.

All appeared well as the Romans had the “pacification” of modern-day Germany underway in A.D. 9. The early Principate Roman Army had driven the “barbarians” before it, as it had done many times before. Then revolt stirred and Rome relied on a charismatic German prince, raised as a hostage and then proven auxiliary commander in Roman civilization, to help reaffirm the Empire’s authority in his country…

Check out this episode!

• Monument to Arminius in Germany
• Rendering of an Early Principate Legion in defensive formation
• Soldier of the 19th Legion which fought at Teutoburg, as rendered by Peter Dennis
• Teutoburg Forest today.
• Inside the forest today.
• Germans emerging from the woods.

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Teutoburg Forest AD 9: The destruction of Varus and his legions

Military history professionally undertaken—with maps and excellent color illustrations

The Battle that stopped Rome: Emperor Augustus, Arminius, and the Slaughter of the Legions in the Teutoburg Forest

I hesitate to post this, because I have issues with this anthropologist’s description of the actual battle, but he offers a far more detailed explanation and look at German culture and motivations at that time. Read for the anthropology!

Complete Roman Army

I’ve recommended this book before and I’ll do it again! This is a large and definitive history of the Roman fighting machine, excellently illustrated.

The image of the samurai is almost synonymous with Japanese history for many people: the honor-bound, bow and sword wielding individual warrior on horseback. It could have been very different. When the early Japanese Court was trying hard to adopt the massed infantry tactics of China, a series of defeats to an impressive “barbarian” guerrilla warrior from the north changed the military culture of the country.

Check out this episode!

• Monument to the legendary “Emishi” warrior Aterui in Hirakata, Japan.
• Map of 8th century Japan. Territory dominated by the imperial Japanese is in red. “Silla” is the kingdom in Southern Korea Japan attempted to invade late in the previous century.
• Medieval Japan as it looked later. Provinces 2 and 3 here are Mutsu and Dewa, the large sections of “frontier” country that was wrested from the Emishi and loosely organized even centuries later.
• The famous general Sakanoue Tamuramaro—the first successful man to wear the title sei-tai-shogun, or “great general who subdues the barbarians,” later shortened in popular history to “Shogun.” This is a fanciful depiction of him from centuries later.
• Wooden model of Aterui’s head from a Japanese shrine. This isn’t notable for how Aterui looked (there are no contemporary depictions of him that survive.) This is significant for how the Japanese people wanted to remember him: the embodiment of fierce defiance.

You can support the podcast by downloading on iTunes, subscribing, or making a donation. We love reviews and the Centurion reads every single one! Please share it on social media using the links at the bottom of this post. Thank You!

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A History of Japan to 1334

The OG—Sansom wrote a comprehensive history of Japan that is readable and scholarly at the same time, while still respected many decades later. Volume 2 is even better, although it covers events centuries later than those of this podcast.

Heavenly Warriors: The Evolution of Japan’s Military, 500–1300

When my own history professor assigned this way back when, she made clear it was a “counter” narrative to a lot of how Japanese history had been interpreted for many decades. It’s a great companion source to something like Sansom.

Part 3 of a series on historical events that are widely overrated in aspects of their impact and yet actually underrated and deeply misunderstood. The decisive victory Hannibal Barca won over the Roman Republic at Cannae in 216 BC was the crown jewel of his many achievements, and has been studied so often that perhaps it’s now cliché. I retell the story to focus on why it was so significant in that war and why it still has lessons for us, despite what modern scholars might think.

Check out this episode!

• Bust of Hannibal Barca
• Battle starting positions and progress to double envelopment.
• Celtiberian warriors
• Carthaginian infantryman with war elephant in the background.
• Spanish cavalry– underrated key players for Hannibal.
• Model rendering of the famous Numidian cavalryman.

You can support our podcast by downloading on iTunes, subscribing, or making a donation at the bottom of the page. We love reviews and the Centurion reads every single one! Please share it on social media using the links at the bottom of this post. Thank You!

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Hannibal

Complete Roman Army

In The Complete Roman Army, Goldsworthy writes an accessible and detailed account of the evolution of Roman arms, with plenty of visuals to help the general audience understand how things looked. In Roman Warfare, the Roman ethos over the development of their civilization is also effectively captured.

Roman Warfare

Livy: The Early History of Rome

Polybius: The Histories

Both Polybius and Livy were historians under the Roman thumb, who were expected to write accounts that reflected well on Roman development. Their bias has to be taken into account, but they remain invaluable sources for the rise of Rome. Polybius in particular had a great influence on the subject of history and the idea that it should be a rational discussion of causes and effects. I can remember my first time reading him, while on a plane in 2002—excellent history, even translated and read out of context over 2000 years later!

Part 2 of a series on historical events that are widely overrated in aspects of their impact and yet actually underrated and deeply misunderstood. The Roman civilization is famous all over the world, but few people know just how unlikely and unique their rise to power was. Through an uncommon combination of ruthlessness and humility, Rome built a culture and a war machine that learned from mistakes, adapted to circumstances, and relentlessly pursued total victory. 

Check out this episode!

• Deployed Roman Maniple
• Left to right: members of the hastati, velites, triarii, and principes
• Enemies: the Macedonian phalanx
• “Under the yoke” after the Battle of the Caudine Forks
• Bust of Scipio Africanus

Complete Roman Army

In The Complete Roman Army, Goldsworthy writes an accessible and detailed account of the evolution of Roman arms, with plenty of visuals to help the general audience understand how things looked. In Roman Warfare, the Roman ethos over the development of their civilization is also effectively captured.

Roman Warfare

Livy: The Early History of Rome

Polybius: The Histories

Both Polybius and Livy were historians under the Roman thumb, who were expected to write accounts that reflected well on Roman development. Their bias has to be taken into account, but they remain invaluable sources for the rise of Rome. Polybius in particular had a great influence on the subject of history and the idea that it should be a rational discussion of causes and effects. I can remember my first time reading him, while on a plane in 2002—excellent history, even translated and read out of context over 2000 years later!

You can support our podcast by downloading on iTunes, subscribing, or making a donation at the bottom of the page. We love reviews and the Centurion reads every single one! Please share it on social media using the links at the bottom of this post. Thank You!

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Part 1 of a series on historical events that are widely overrated in aspects of their impact and yet actually underrated and deeply misunderstood. President Abraham Lincoln ‘s landmark Emancipation Proclamation is known popularly as what “freed the slaves,” but its story is far more complex. Skeptics correctly point out that it did very little to change the legal and actual status of slaves anywhere in America at that time, but I break it down here for the brilliant practical strike at the institution of slavery that it was. Honest Abe for the win, and within the limits of his Constitutional Power to boot.

Check out this episode!

You can support our podcast by downloading on iTunes, subscribing, or making a donation at the bottom of the page. We love reviews and the Centurion reads every single one! Please share it on social media using the links at the bottom of this post. Thank You!

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Your monthly contribution helps offset podcast hosting costs and enables the Centurion to dedicate more time to his craft.

Your contribution enables the Centurion to plan ahead, purchase books and create new episodes. Thank you!