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Author's Synopsis
"Jungle Ghosts: Walking Point in Vietnam” is a narrative nonfiction account of my tour of duty as an infantry soldier in 1969-70 Vietnam. It has been highly rated by readers, and a Vietnam Veterans Association reviewer who described it as a “beautifully written, exquisitely detailed Vietnam War memoir [… that] is almost a literary work of art, which I urge you to read, as no review can really do it justice.” He concluded his review by stating, “Read this book and you will almost experience Ed Mann’s war and may agree with me that it is one of the best Vietnam War memoirs you have ever read.”
At barely 20 years of age, I was a low ranking enlisted man stepping beneath a jungle canopy for the first time with “eyes wide with wonder.” I knew little about the war in the jungle or the deadly North Vietnamese soldiers we would find there, but what we experienced that day led me to a decision that would follow me throughout my year in Vietnam: that to survive I’d have to rely on my own judgement regardless of rank. You can judge the propriety and accuracy of that resolve as you read of the events that unfolded; events that will raise questions and concerns about America’s Vietnam War and the wars that followed, about the information gap that existed between the military bureaucracy that formulated the strategies and tactics that we were ordered to employ, and about the flaws in human nature and the disparate cost/benefits considerations between those in power and those of us most at risk that led to pointless casualties for those of us in the front lines of the war.
The book doesn’t lecture on those issues. My account of the months spent in the jungle speaks for itself, opening a window to a time and a place where men fought in a dim and leaf littered jungle earth that was hidden from the sky and capturing the hardships we faced, my inner thoughts and actions, and the fears and courage of my fellow soldiers in a way that will hopefully enable others to gain an emotional understanding of the depths of the fears, frustrations, and sadness that followed many of us home.
I’m no hero, I’m a survivor. I’ve written a deeply self-perspective account of how the adrenaline pounding danger I faced was seductive, how my brain changed so that I was able to reawaken long buried instincts that enabled my slow word-logic brain to quiet itself and let unfiltered jungle sounds, scents and images flow through me and nudge my conscious mind with the kinds of instinctual warnings that allowed our ancient ancestors to survive when humans were prey, and how I was able to manage my fear by accepting my anticipated inevitable death while walking point. In the telling, my favorite sections of the book relate my connection to and descriptions of Vietnam’s amazing tropical jungle whose voices, scents, sightlines, and feels were my lifeline.
My memoir ends with my haunting memory of my imperiled fellow soldiers looking up at me as a chopper is lifting me off the floor of the jungle for the last time.
Format(s) for review: Paper or Kindle
Review genre: Nonfiction—Memoir/Biography
Pages/Word count: 325 / 135,000