24 April 2011 VIETNAM, BOOK ONE: I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE by Chris Lynch, Scholastic Press, November 2011, 192p., ISBN: 978-0-545-27029-8

"I ain't got no quarrel with the Vietcong.  No Vietcong ever called me Nigger."

-- Muhammad Ali

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning."

-- Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, Apocalypse Now 

"Thou shalt not kill"

-- The Ten Commandments

"All we are saying is

Give peace a chance"

-- John Lennon

It was 40 years ago today that I awoke long before dawn, walked over to school, and boarded the bus that drove us through the early morning hours from Commack, Long Island to Washington, D.C. for what was, at that point, the largest protest ever held in the nation's capital.  Marching and singing from the Ellipse behind the White House to the steps of the Capitol amidst hundreds of thousands of my fellow Americans, I listened to Coretta Scott King and Senator Vance Hartke and Vietnam Vet John Kerry and Peter, Paul, and Mary and John Denver, and others, speaking out and singing out against the Vietnam War. 

Thanks to the fortunes of history and randomness of one's birth year, America's military involvement in The War ended shortly before I needed to decide the manner by which I would refuse to participate. 

But fortune shone less brightly upon Rudi, one of the four friends from Boston in Chris Lynch's upcoming series for tweens, VIETNAM.  When Rudi receives his induction notice, his three lifelong friends, Morris, Ivan, and Beck all proceed to enlist in the armed forces as per the pledge they've made to always stick together.  Morris, who narrates the first book in this high-action, historical fiction series, is suddenly in the Navy, finished with basic training, and aboard the USS Boston heading for Vietnam:

"The United States Navy has its ideas about what my mission is, as it has pretty clear ideas about everything.  And that's fine.  They have trained me and conditioned me to do certain things with the very serious gear they have assembled for the purpose and, again, I say that's fine.  I am an Aviation Electrician's Mate Third Class (AE3).  Sounds a little sad, like my whole designation is just to be some kind of little buddy -- third-class buddy, at that -- to the real grown-up electricians on board.  But I'm cool with that, as there are about a zillion miles of wiring, plus switches and sockets and transformers on a ship like this, so something minor is always on the fritz.  I get small repair jobs with instructions not to electrocute myself or anyone else.  I even carry around a special, official Navy electrician's knife on my belt.  The second blade is a screwdriver, while the longer one is a regular knifing knife, so just in case we get overrun by the enemy, I can give him a quick stabbing and then get back to changing a fuse, thereby fulfilling both of my main duties for my country."

Then the Boston arrives at The War and all hell breaks loose.

When his ship is forced to return to Boston for repairs and upgrading, after being damaged in a friendly-fire attack, Morris is given shore leave and gets to briefly return home to his mother.  In a moving scene when he is alone, up in his bedroom for the first time since leaving home, we see how dramatically his perceptions about the world and life have changed in such a short time. 

At the end of his three-day leave:

"I stand on Peters Hill, looking out over the city of Boston, ready to head back to the ship of Boston.  I'm anxious to go now.  I never thought I would say that.  The people I have met have all been polite, but nobody is giving me any of that 'go get 'em' stuff like in the movies.

"Instead they say:

'Just come home safe.'

'Keep your head down.'

''Don't be a hero.'

"That last one came from Mrs. Lahar, my sixth grade teacher, who now lives in a retirement home halfway between my house and my old school.

"I laughed at first.  'Don't be a hero?  Mrs. Lahar, you were the one who taught me about heroes.  You were the most gung-ho history teacher I ever came across, before or since.

'"She nodded, then pointed a long finger at me with the same old authority.  'There are a lot of causes to die for, Morris.  Come home from that pointless and immoral war and find one.'"  

While he cannot understand The War, or how it could be pointless or immoral, his three childhood friends are over there and so he cannot wait to return.  And that's when he learns he's been reassigned to a far more dangerous detail, the radioman on a small armored and armed floating tank designed to provide river support to the Army.

Now The War really begins for Morris.

"The thing, finally, that makes shooting at a person feel right?  It's shooting at them.  Shooting a gun is the thing that convinces you of the rightness of shooting.

"Because it works.  It solves problems, after all, right?"

VIETNAM, BOOK ONE: I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE successfully walks the line necessary to make this a notable book for tweens and tween collections.  There is no language or sex or smoking and drinking.  What there is is wall-to-wall honesty, action, comradeship, introspection, dark humor, and the awful smells and tastes of war and death.