The Long Reckoning

March 20, 2023
Journalist Black (Empire of Shadows) delivers a fascinating study of the ongoing repercussions of the American war in Vietnam. The focus is on a relatively small group of American, Canadian, and Vietnamese scientists, politicians, and military veterans who have worked with the Vietnamese and U.S. governments to ameliorate the “multiple horrors,” including unexploded ordnance and the ill-health effects of exposure to Agent Orange and other defoliants, afflicting Vietnamese civilians. At the center of the narrative are two American veterans who have dedicated their lives to making amends for the war: Chuck Searcy, an Army intelligence analyst during his 1967–1968 tour of duty in Saigon, and Manus Campbell, a former Marine who faced “the horrors of combat in ‘the bush’ ” and endured a long struggle with PTSD. Black movingly recounts both men’s war experiences and the paths that brought them back to Vietnam, where they now live, and details their efforts to raise funds for those orphaned or disabled by the war, deliver prosthetics to amputees, decontaminate and demine military bases, and search for missing American servicemen. Insightful recaps of diplomatic negotiations are interwoven with evocative descriptions of the Vietnamese landscape and brisk summaries of the long campaign for accountability from the American government. The result is a brilliant look at “the long, slow process of healing.”