by W.D. Ehrhart
I was saddened to hear that Philip Caputo has died. Caputo first came to prominence as the author of A Rumor of War, published in 1977, and one of the most widely read memoirs of the American War in Vietnam.
I first got to know him over 35 years ago during a trip to Vietnam when we were both members of a delegation to the first-ever Conference of U.S. and Vietnamese Veteran-Writers held in Hanoi in June 1990.
This turned out to be a very interesting trip for an assortment of reasons. There was the conference itself, of course, which took place over two days, and at which we met a number of prominent Vietnamese writers, including novelist Cao Tien Le, who told us how he used to enjoy killing Americans. “Now things are different, so I won’t shoot you,” he said, though he certainly looked and sounded as if he would still like to.
After the conference ended, when our hosts asked us if there was anything in particular we’d like to do, we said that we’d like to meet General Vo Nguyen Giap, the man who had beaten both the French and the Americans. Much to our amazement, the general agreed to meet with us.
Though he was 89 by then, he was still quick-witted, lively, and energetic, and we spent a delightful hour and a half with him. I even sat next to the general on a small sofa, and at one point he peeled a fresh lichee nut and hand-fed it to me, popping it straight into my mouth.
This photograph of Phil and me with the general was taken at the end of our meeting. The young man in the photo is a translator (remember that). I am giving General Giap a copy of my poem “Making the Children Behave,” which I had had a Vietnamese friend translate into Vietnamese, and I handed out copies all over the place because I wanted people to see another side of this American.
After we left Hanoi, we traveled to Hue, Da Nang, and Dong Ha, but eventually ended up in Ho Chi Minh City. There, at a lunch gathering, General Giap’s assistant, a gray-haired colonel who’d probably been Giap’s aide for 60 or 70 years, came in and sat down beside me. When I asked him what he was doing here in Saigon, he replied, “I came to find you.”
“Really?” I replied, quite startled by his reply.
“Yes,” he said. “The general liked your poem very much, but he would like to know what it says in English.”
“General Giap knows English?” I asked.
The colonel broke into a very broad grin. “Oh yes,” he said, “Very well.”
During our audience with General Giap back in Hanoi, we had spoken to him through the young translator in that photograph, and the general had replied to our questions in Vietnamese, his answers then being translated into English. I have always thought since then that this was General Giap’s way of letting us know that we were in his country, and we would communicate in his language, not ours.
But back to Phil Caputo. Everywhere we went, we were wined and dined by the local Writers Union, and that evening they took us to the screening of a film that was essentially a modernized re-make of Vietnam’s national epic poem, “The Tale of Kieu.” In the movie, set during the American War, a beautiful young woman prostitutes herself to an American army officer in order to save her brother from an evil Saigon government official.
We then went to yet another banquet. At the end of the banquet, as we were to go off to the Rex Hotel to see a program of “Vietnamese” music that was really just rehashed Western rock-n-roll, a number of young women showed up. One sat next to me in the van, and proceeded to take my hand. I removed my hand from her grip, but she took it again.
When I disengaged a second time, another young woman said in poor English, “You not like my friend?” There was clearly no point in trying to explain that I was and am happily married, and not interested in whatever this arrangement was supposed to be since neither woman understood English. But when we got to the Rex and went into the theater, my “date” again sat down beside me and tried to take my hand.
This was profoundly upsetting. For one thing, I was indeed happily married and not the least bit interested in whatever I was supposed to do with this young woman. (It seemed clear that the intention was for me to have sex with her at some point during the evening.) For another thing, it sickened me to see that at least some of the dedicated revolutionaries who had fought me with such intensity two decades earlier had so quickly been corrupted themselves by the power they had wrested from the former Saigon regime. I simply got up and left.
There is, or was, an outdoor bar on the roof of the Rex. Phil and I had sat up there for several hours the previous afternoon enjoying the sunshine and the view, so I went up there, had several drinks, and brooded over my disappointment at men who had apparently become as rotten as the rotten men they had displaced.
A few hours later, Phil appeared. “I thought you might be here,” he said, “The show’s over and we’re leaving.” The van dropped Phil and me off at the government guest house where we were staying, and which I never would have found on my own, but everyone else—young women included—drove away.
I was still far too angry and wired to sleep, but Phil said he had a bottle of Glenlivet Scotch, and invited me into his room for a drink. He then told me that when the show ended, and I was nowhere to be seen, all of the others on our trip were simply going to leave me behind. But Phil had insisted that they wait while he went to look for me. “We’re Marines,” he said, which he and I both were,” We don’t leave anyone behind.”
Between the two of us, we talked deep into the wee hours of the morning, finishing off that bottle of scotch, and cementing a friendship I have valued ever since. I had known most of my traveling companions before this trip took place, but I had never before met Phil. However, Phil Caputo earned my admiration and my respect that night while the other members of our group lost my respect entirely.
In the aftermath of that trip, I stayed in touch with him, and saw him on several additional occasions over the years. I was particularly pleased to see that, when French filmmaker Jean-Baptiste Peretie did the 2019 documentary “John Wayne, l’Amérique à tout prix” (John Wayne: America at All Costs) for Europe’s ARTE TV, the only American veterans Peretie interviewed were Phil and me, something Phil seemed pleased about, too, as he commented in an e-mail after the film came out.
I have ambivalent feelings about Phil’s most famous book, A Rumor of War, because under the antiwar veneer lurks a hint that if Phil had fought a less questionable war, a war where Americans were clearly the good guys—say, World War Two, perhaps—he might not have ended up as an “anti-warrior.”
But he was a very good journalist, novelist, and nonfiction writer, and I liked very much a lot of his books. My favorite is Ghosts of Tsavo, a nonfiction book about a pair of man-eating lions in East Africa in the 1890s.
Moreover, as he made clear to me back in June 1990, Phil Caputo was a decent and honorable man, and a Marine who was not about to leave another Marine behind. I am sorry he has died. I am grateful to have known him.
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W.D. Ehrhart is a retired Master Teacher of History & English, and author of a Vietnam War memoir trilogy published by McFarland.