The Heart of a Soldier

Last December I heard a sermon in which the pastor recounted a phone call from a soldier in Afghanistan. The enlisted man had called to ask some questions about the funeral service of an aged parishioner. But then he asked, "Have you decorated the church yet? Are the children working on a pageant? Will they present it on Christmas Eve?" He went on through the litany of the church's traditional Christmas schedule until tears silenced his voice.

Holidays are painful milestones for those serving abroad. I was thinking about this last week while reading "The Man from Saigon," a new novel by Marti Leimbach. In 1967, Susan Gifford, a young reporter, is sent to Vietnam in search of "women's interest" stories for a magazine back home. It soon becomes clear that such stories will not be found at the regular press briefings in Saigon, and Susan begins to flirt with getting close, but not too close, to the actual war.


As time passes, she discovers that while the fear never really goes away, war begins to feel normal and fear no longer impedes activity. She partners with a Vietnamese photographer, Son, who hopes to get his work into the American press, and the two develop a close working relationship. He serves as a teacher and interpreter, and Susan's American press credentials open doors for him.

Together they venture deeper and deeper into the combat zone. Her stories are well-received and her editor even agrees to pay for some of Son's photographs. On their way to a refugee camp, the two hitch a ride with an American supply convoy. The convoy is ambushed, and Susan and Son are captured by three Viet Cong soldiers who have become separated from their unit. Believing their prisoners may prove useful, they take them on a forced march through the jungle in search of their comrades.

Leimbach was 4 years old in 1967; her novel is based entirely on research. Female reporters were not common in Vietnam, but they were there and several were captured by the North Vietnamese. The Vietnam War is the war of my generation, and it is somewhat unsettling to discover that it is now the stuff of historical fiction. Be that as it may, Leimbach is a marvelous and insightful writer and "The Man from Saigon" is a true page-turner.

Leimbach interweaves stories of Susan's time in-country before the ambush with the ongoing story of the horrific march through the jungle and the new relationship developing between Susan, Son and their captors. The story of her love affair with an American television reporter is juxtaposed with her changing view of Son and her brief glimpses of what the war means to her North Vietnamese captors.

Dickey Chapelle was a real-life photographer and war correspondent who had covered World War II and the Korean War before coming to Vietnam. She was perhaps the original "embedded" reporter and was famous for her willingness to take risks in pursuit of a story. She was killed by flying shrapnel Nov. 4, 1965, while on patrol with a Marine platoon. There is a famous photo of her, lying in a pool of her own blood, receiving last rites from a Marine chaplain.

Chapelle has a symbolic presence in this novel. Susan is haunted by that photograph, by her recognition of the detachment that enables one to frame a shot and get the story, instead of reaching out to offer solace to a dying comrade Ð and by a dawning realization that there is no such thing as a neutral position in war.

Leimbach took a chance with this novel. The authors of the "classics" on the war are all still around. Her work will not supplant theirs, and it didn't change my own personal roster of favorites: Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" still heads the list, followed closely by Joe Haldeman's "1968," and Stephen King's "Hearts in Atlantis."

Still, when I ask myself "Do we really need another Vietnam novel?" the answer is "Yes, yes we do." "The Man from Saigon" deserves a place on the shelf.

War and Easter may not seem to go together. Those serving overseas know that they do.