Books in Brief

Destroy or Die, The True Story of Mylai, by Martin Gershen (Arlington, 325 pp., $7.95). Destroy or Die is not a particularly well-written book—a hasty expansion of some earlier articles by Mr. Gershen. But it is a powerful one. More than anything else I have read, Mr. Gershen’s account of the Mylai incident gives a real insight into what happened and why. As such, it is very depressing reading; the sad story of a riff-raff company, ill-trained and, in the case of Lt. Calley, ill-led. After being picked to pieces by an unprincipled guerrilla enemy, it finally cracked up, imitating Vietcong savagery for a few bloody minutes on March 16, 1968. Sordid is the word: sordid war; sordid episode; sordid opportunists on the Left and Right who have tried to exploit it. Fortunately, Mr. Gershen is an honest-to-God war correspondent, not one of the journalist/scavengers who have fattened on the anguish of Mylai. He tells his story in the style of Ernie Pyle or the late Jim Lucas, tinged with an understandable bitterness. His portrait of Captain Medina, an admirable man and a first-class officer, and the day-to-day account of Charlie Company’s destruction as a functioning fighting unit (which occured as a prelude to the Mylai episode) are well handled, and he has caught the senseless frenzy of the slaughter itself in simple, indelible prose. “The tragedy of Mylai cannot be condoned,” Mr. Gershen writes, but his graphic, factual account of the event and its preliminaries is probably the most honest, useful piece of writing generated by this wretched episode—and an insight into why it happened. Having read it, I find it even more difficult than before to listen to the glib indictments of the doves and the equally noxious ranting of the Calley fans. Both factions should shut up, read Mr. Gershen’s book, and ask themselves some serious questions.

Broadway, by Brooks Atkinson (Macmillan, 484 pp., $12.50). This survey of the Broadway theater during our century of necessity has something of a nostalgic air. Broadway has fallen on evil days— fewer plays, fewer hits, fewer theaters. Atkinson, the tolerant and amiable former theater critic of the New York Times, has a feeling for the buildings and the people and the era. Though his scope is not encyclopedic, he writes with the double authority of one who was a part of the Broadway milieu and who liked it.

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Destroy or Die, The True Story of Mylai, by Martin Gershen (Arlington, 325 pp., $7.95). Destroy or Die is not a particularly well-written book—a hasty expansion of some earlier articles by Mr. Gershen. But it is a powerful one. More than anything else I have read, Mr. Gershen’s account of the Mylai incident gives a real insight into what happened and why. As such, it is very depressing reading; the sad story of a riff-raff company, ill-trained and, in the case of Lt. Calley, ill-led. After being picked to pieces by an unprincipled guerrilla enemy, it finally cracked up, imitating Vietcong savagery for a few bloody minutes on March 16, 1968. Sordid is the word: sordid war; sordid episode; sordid opportunists on the Left and Right who have tried to exploit it. Fortunately, Mr. Gershen is an honest-to-God war correspondent, not one of the journalist/scavengers who have fattened on the anguish of Mylai. He tells his story in the style of Ernie Pyle or the late Jim Lucas, tinged with an understandable bitterness. His portrait of Captain Medina, an admirable man and a first-class officer, and the day-to-day account of Charlie Company’s destruction as a functioning fighting unit (which occured as a prelude to the Mylai episode) are well handled, and he has caught the senseless frenzy of the slaughter itself in simple, indelible prose. “The tragedy of Mylai cannot be condoned,” Mr. Gershen writes, but his graphic, factual account of the event and its preliminaries is probably the most honest, useful piece of writing generated by this wretched episode—and an insight into why it happened. Having read it, I find it even more difficult than before to listen to the glib indictments of the doves and the equally noxious ranting of the Calley fans. Both factions should shut up, read Mr. Gershen’s book, and ask themselves some serious questions.

Broadway, by Brooks Atkinson (Macmillan, 484 pp., $12.50). This survey of the Broadway theater during our century of necessity has something of a nostalgic air. Broadway has fallen on evil days— fewer plays, fewer hits, fewer theaters. Atkinson, the tolerant and amiable former theater critic of the New York Times, has a feeling for the buildings and the people and the era. Though his scope is not encyclopedic, he writes with the double authority of one who was a part of the Broadway milieu and who liked it.