Vietnam Perkasie 1990

Marah's classic Roundeye Blues was written after Serge Bielanko read Bill Ehrhart's memoir Vietnam Perkasie. He was kind enough to lend me his copy years ago and I was kind enough to return it after only four years. It remains one of the best Vietnam books I've ever read purely for its frankness – Ehrhart makes zero bones about not giving a shit about being some hero in the jungle, wanting only to GTFO and back home in one piece. I stumbled into this video of Ehrhart being interviewed in 1990.

You know the common perception, the notion I heard when I was in high school was it was the Viet Cong terrorized the Vietnamese population forced them to fight against the Americans on the pain of death. What I began to understand in Vietnam was that they didn't need to do things like that. All they had to do was let a marine patrol go through a village and whatever was left at that village, they had all the recruits that they needed. I began to understand why the Vietnamese didn't greet me with open arms.

 

Why they in fact hated me, but of course that didn't change the fact that, that my friends were getting killed and injured every day and the only place that you could focus your own anger and fear was on those civilians who were there. And so, it was a self-perpetuating mechanism

The longer that we stayed in Vietnam the more Viet Cong there were because we created them we produce them.

I highly recommend giving Vietnam Perkasie a read - BUY IT HERE!