TIN CAN

"The whole thing's a mess. We can't win it and we can't get out of it," said Lyndon Baines Johnson about his American War in Viet Nam, as the Viet Namese call it. While he and Congress, clamped in a grand mal seizure of blood lust, avoid the simple solution of declaring "Peace," fifty-eight thousand young Americans die there. And a few million local civilians die too. This short and smooth novel describes the awakening of a destroyer sailor to the background reasons for another nonsensical war: pride, profit and big shots on power trips. So noble. The author served on destroyers for three years and his lucid bold prose describing marine combat delivers the high point of naval literature that has been called "... up there with Joseph Conrad and Melville."