DISPATCHES

Chapter one: 'Going out at night the medics gave you pills, Dexedrine breath like dead snakes kept too long in a jar... Whenever I heard something outside of our clenched little circle I'd practically flip... a couple of rounds fired off in the dark a kilometre away and the Elephant would be there kneeling on my chest, sending me down into my boots for a breath. Once I thought I saw a light moving in the jungle...' A groundbreaking piece of journalism which inspired Stanley Kubrick's classic Vietnam War film Full Metal Jacket. Michael Herr went to Vietnam as a war correspondent for Esquire. He returned to tell the real story in all its hallucinatory madness and brutality, cutting to the quick of the conflict and its seductive, devastating impact on a generation of young men. His unflinching account is haunting in its violence, but even more so in its honesty. First published in 1977, Dispatches was a revolutionary piece of new journalism that evoked the experiences of soldiers in Vietnam and has forever shaped our understanding of the conflict. It is now a seminal classic of war reportage. The book conveys all the facades of patriotism, heroism and the whole colossal fraud of American intervention. It all falls away to the bare bones of fear, war and death. With an introduction by Kevin Powers. Remainder mark, 288 page paperback.