To Vietnam in Vain: Memoir of an Irish-American Intelligence Advisor, 1969-1970

by Edward A. Hagan

Overview

American military advisors in South Vietnam came to know their allies personally--as few American soldiers could. In addition to fighting the Viet Cong, advisors engaged in community building projects and local government initiatives. They dealt firsthand with corrupt American and South Vietnamese bureaucracies. Not many advisors would have been surprised to learn that 105mm artillery shells were being sold on the black market to the Viet Cong. Not many were surprised by the North Vietnamese victory in 1975.

This memoir of a U.S. Army intelligence officer focuses on the province advisors who worked with local militias that were often disparaged by American units. The author describes his year (1969-1970) as a U.S. advisor to the South Vietnamese Regional and Popular Forces in the Mekong Delta.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476623689
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	12/01/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	6 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Edward A. Hagan, the son of Irish immigrants, served as a U.S. Army intelligence officer in Vietnam. He is Connecticut State University Distinguished Professor of Writing at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury and is the author of numerous books and articles on war literature and on Irish literature. He lives in Brewster New York.
Edward A. Hagan, the son of Irish immigrants, served as a U.S. Army intelligence officer in Vietnam. He is Connecticut State University Distinguished Professor of Writing at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury and is the author of numerous books and articles on war literature and on Irish literature. He lives in Brewster New York.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface
Preamble
Introduction
Progress
Oplan Missouri: Harry’s Funeral
Pacification
Winning
History Lesson
Tet ’68: We Won
The Man Who Wore a Tux to War
The Books and the Movies
Models for Irish Youth
Tammany’s Heirs
Saint John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Telling What Happened
Nostalgia
Who’s Fightin’ Here?
A Servant of the Crown
The IRA and Clan Hagan
A Deal We Can Refuse
Sun Worship
World War II and Being Irish
I’d Rather Fight in Dungannon
The POW Charade
Cowardice
The Boy Scouts and ­High-Mindedness
RFK in Absentia
My Sainted Mother
Jim Carroll, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and the Other Guys
The VC Shoot Too
Eating Jelly Donuts
The Smell of Pink Plexiglass
Courage? No Choice
The Calendar and Sex
Careerism
Goalless War
And Two Years Later…
Central Intelligence
Buttoned Up and the Catholic Cabal
Local Truces and the Killing of John Goggin
Faking Ourselves
The M-16: Success in the Laboratory
No Lights in the Fog
Food Poisoning on Firefly and Senator Javits
Futility
Blushing and 105mm Rounds for Sale
How I Learned the Thousand Yard Stare
The American Black and Tans
The Phong Dinh Daily Mayhem
This Can’t be Happening
Buy Bonds or Else…
The Kaiser: An Irish Hero
The Phoenix Program
The Wannabes
Shoot First; Reform Later
Ga-Ga about Gadgets
The Epic of Lieutenant Kennedy
A Prayer for the Kids of Cooper Street
Appendix: Correspondence with Congressmen William F. Ryan, 1970
Glossary
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

represents a significant contribution to both the memory of the Vietnam War and the collective understanding of the conflict at the province level..indispensable”—H-Net Reviews; “a powerful and thoughtful memoir of a soldier in combat”—On Point; “Edward Hagan is an influential voice in the study of Irish and Irish-American. Hagan explores the collateral damage to not only the narrative arc of his life, but also the impact on the Irish-American consciousness. His memoir augments the Vietnam War literature canon and advances our understanding of conflict and unpacks the Irish-American struggle to balance a resonate obligation to fight for America while also maintaining an allegiance to Irish anti-imperialist, revolutionary roots. Hagan succeeds not only in generating disorientation through narrative fragmentation and structure, but he also generates realism through discontinuity and irony-filled experiences with the unexpected. He creates a memoir with the cutting edge of a work of satire. As a result, we see the cultural and moral eddies that continue to ensnare all of us”—War, Literature & The Arts.

From the Publisher