Nam-Sense: Surviving Vietnam with the 101st Airborne
By: Arthur Wiknik Jr. / Narrated By: Todd McLaren
Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
I salute ALL who served, esPECially in Vietnam… but this was rather annoying
I KNOW!!!
ANYthing BUT a Rave review for a memoir on Vietnam, for a person who topped Hamburger Hill, no less?
Say it ain’t so!!!
But it is.
Lemme start off with the choice of Todd McLaren as narrator.
Who? Chose? Him?!?
It’s like this, see. Arthur Wiknik is just a kid, 19-years old, when he’s sent to Vietnam. And McLaren sounds like he’s in his 30s-40s. So right there, Nam-Sense started off, well, off-putting, and as we get to know Wiknik as his war progresses, it just got to be too much to bear.
What this is: A typical Year In Vietnam War memoir. With lotsandlotsandLOTS of fiery outbursts by Wiknik. Which all sound like a middle-aged man venting and ranting and raving. This does NOT sound like a hotheaded kid, and to be honest, some of his smart-ass quips shoulda landed him with Bad Time, time in the Brig that does NOT count as time served.
Further, this whole tale is jam-packed with instances of shirking, of leaving his buddies in the thick of war whilst he suckered time in the rear or some exotic hotspot with a Boom-Boom girl, some poor young Vietnamese girl who probably didn’t have many choices in a land torn up by our American War. No thoughts of them as humans, and indeed one “hilarious” instance when a sick and bedraggled woman begs to perform oral sex on a friend for a dollar, much to his delight as he brays laughter at his buddy, won’t let him live it down.
And see? There’s that Choice of Narrator thing again. Cuz I’d have MUCH more sympathy for a young kid doing something like that cuz kids are spastic dweebs. They can be heartless and even cruel, and given their forming brains, I can understand that. But when the person sounds middle-aged? Dude, all I could think was: Oh you freaking a-hole.
There’s some action here, but there’s little fear.
Again? From a kid, it woulda seemed like their whole Don’t Understand Mortality thing. But from a grown man? Just plain cockiness. Again, off-putting.
No, I’m sooooo ashamed to say that I’ve FINALLY found a Vietnam memoir I canNOT recommend. Not when there are soooo many others that are gut wrenching, heartrending, covering all aspects of the War, covering all Branches.
So many many MANY young men went there, fought there. So many many MANY died there.
To come home to a country that didn’t have their backs.
This did NOT make me feel anything real. And it didn’t touch any old wounds. It didn’t touch me in any way.
And whilst McLaren can do a tirade like any good middle-aged man can?
Well, he can’t do a gung ho kid who just wants to get laid by a Vietnamese prostitute and get sent to the Rear. At least? Not in any manner that can have me feeling for the kid…
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.