This young woman had tattoos and attitude, and some of the audience was taken aback and chagrined, because it came off kinda rude, at least to them. A fart in church, you might say.

But I loved it. Because it’s a 100-percent legit question to ask, especially in dealing with frontier history. And I gave her the most honest answer that I could. I don’t know what I say I know. Not for sure. Frontier history in particular is so entangled with myth and folklore that you can’t ever be sure you’re getting the “real” truth of the matter. Lyman C. Draper’s interviews with frontier folk who lived through one of the most epic chapters of Frontier Partisan history in Revolutionary War Kentucky are a treasure trove, a primary source of “ground truth” — but they were done years after events, and memory is notoriously unreliable. You can end up with multiple versions of the same event. Sometimes they are pretty close and can be reconciled, sometimes not so much.

Once a myth is established, it’s really hard to challenge – and sometimes fraught with conflict. I just got a note from Hugh T. Harrington, whose close examination of the purported kill shot by Tim Murphy on British General Simon Fraser in The Journal of the American Revolution and The Journal of Military History stirred up a shitstorm. That’s a 249-year-old event, and people still feel passionately invested in it.

I’m currently listening to various points of view about the nature of the 17th Century Iroquois “Beaver Wars,” which is fraught even though it’s almost 400-year-old (really obscure) history, because it carries current culture wars baggage.

I find this kind of thing fascinating. It reminds us that history is a constructed story. Constructed, deconstructed, reconstructed. A lie agreed upon is too cynical — most of the time — but it can be that, too. Mostly it’s just a mess, because it’s human, and human-folk are messy. And when an event of recent history that carries significant emotional weight is loaded with two or more competing and mutually incompatible narratives, the results can be explosive.

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The Battle of Takur Ghar, aka Roberts Ridge, March 4, 2002, remains intensely controversial — and it’s blowing up again. A documentary film titled GROUND TRUTH:THE 16 HOUR / 16 YEAR BATTLE FOR ROBERTS RIDGE is currently in post-production for a late-fall/winter release. Promotion has begun, and the fire around it has been hot.

I posted on the battle and a forthcoming Ron Howard feature based around the actions of Combat Controller John Chapman last year. You can catch up to the controversy in that post, but it boils down to this:

Chapman is believed to have been wounded while attempting to take out an enemy bunker, regained consciousness and fought on, while a SEAL Team also engaged in the fight left him for dead.

Chapman was initially awarded the Air Force Cross for his actions, though many believed at the time that his actions merited the Congressional Medal of Honor. The matter became controversial as the Naval Special Warfare Command allegedly actively lobbied against awarding Chapman the MOH. There were competing narratives about what exactly happened on the mountain, and why the SEAL Team left Chapman on the mountain. Recognizing that Chapman had regained consciousness and continued the fight required an acknowledgement that he had been left alone and alive by the SEAL Team — and they will not make such an acknowledgement.

Well, the Ground Truth team has answers for that, and the narrative is utterly different. They posted at great length on Reddit:

John Chapman was killed within the first few minutes of the second insert to recover or rescue Neil Roberts. He never revived. He did not continue to fight. This is an unfortunate fact. We realize this counters most of the books, articles, and podcasts pushing the Chapman Medal of Honor narrative over the last 24 years. Before any of you reflexively and angrily start replying in all caps, consider a few things.

Most of what you’ve read or listened to is one-sided or incomplete. The flurry of podcasts released last year around the Medal of Honor Museum opening were single interviews from one side. That group repeatedly refused to interview or openly engage with anyone opposing their story. They designed an echo chamber. Sean Naylor’s book, Not a Good Day to Die, interviewed a handful of people who shared and shaped the story for everyone else. More people were left uninterviewed than were included. While Sean was in Afghanistan at the time of the battle, he was never on the mountain. This is an important distinction. You cannot understand this battle without walking the battlefield.

For those leaning on Matt Cole’s book, Code Over Country, consider: it’s loaded with unattributable sources. “A senior SEAL leader stated…” Why wouldn’t these people go on record? Unattributable sources are a fact of journalism, but to write an entire book citing unnamed sources throughout raises serious questions.

To the SEAL brand protection claims, or the “SEALs always lie” belief — every service branch does this at times. The Army with Tillman and Jessica Lynch. The Navy embellished Lone Survivor and made it something it was not. The Marine Corps embellished Sgt. Peralta’s actions in 2004. There are many more examples. The question is why…

… To those entrenched and invested in the Chapman MOH narrative: ask yourself why. Did you fight the revision of the Tillman story, still insisting he was killed by enemy fire? Did you resist the collapse of the Lone Survivor narrative? Why this one? What is your connection or interest in this story? How is it serving you?

The Dan Schilling video posted in 2019 was viewed more than 21 million times. It was the public’s largest introduction to this story. It was released the same day as Schilling’s book Alone at Dawn. It was marketing for the book. Go watch it again. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oKMjTqdTYo. It is 8:52 long. Ask yourself a few things. Where is the rest of the video—the other roughly two hours from both the AC-130 Gunship (callsign GRIM 32) and the Wildfire Predator? For the rest of your life, when social media or the news presents a truncated video, the first question you should ask is: “Where is the rest?” Context matters. Where are the radio comms from that night? Why is a narrator telling you what you are seeing? Why is the music what it is? Why is it annotated the way it is?

Why will some of you accuse Ground Truth of bias, but overlook Lori Longfritz Chapman’s bias (John Chapman’s sister), Rob Harrison’s bias (AF Gunship crew), or Dan Schilling’s bias?

Again, watch the Dan Schilling video and imagine how the other nearly 95% of the visual material, paired with the comms, might change your understanding of events. Did the initial ICE shooting videos of Renee Good and Alex Pretti paint a definitive picture of what happened in Minneapolis? Did you feel you had seen everything you needed to see from the first postings, or did those situations become clearer as more footage was released?

Ground Truth spoke to the people who were there—the people who fought in the snow and lost teammates. You’re going to hear it from them. Go tell the Rangers they are wrong. Go tell the medical examiners they are wrong. Tell the drone pilots they are wrong. u/valhallVFT was not there. u/teamhousewas not there. u/Sethhettena has never been to the mountain or spoken to anyone who fought this battle. To continue to listen to those who were not there, and not to those who were, is indefensible.

We need to believe in our heroes—they serve an important role in society. We also need to get to the truth in stories like this so we have a better chance of not repeating them.

We realize there are many questions that need to be answered. The credible ones, asked in good faith, will be addressed in the docuseries. Every single team, unit, and service branch had a hand in losing the reality of this story. For the Navy haters—yes, we are including them in that statement. There are relevant explanations for Jay Hill’s claim of hearing Chapman on the radio. There are relevant explanations for how Roberts was found and the condition of Chapman’s body when he was found. There are relevant explanations for nearly every important aspect of the story. When there wasn’t one, Ground Truth did what others did not—we admitted when things were unknowable.

Dan Schilling, Lori Longfritz-Chapman, Eric Deming, Rob Harrison, Matt Cubbler, Matt Cole—let’s sit down and discuss this battle and pressure-test each other’s arguments. Stop hiding behind uncontested podcast interviews where the interviewer doesn’t know enough to challenge your claims. Pick the time and venue. It can be six versus one if you like.

By 2015, the Air Force had not awarded a Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War. Every other service branch had multiple recipients in this nation’s longest war. When the Secretary of Defense ordered a military-wide review of all Silver Stars and above for potential upgrades, the Air Force saw an opportunity—and manufactured one.

The ability to change one’s mind is a sign of intelligence. The Ground Truth docuseries is not for those who cannot or will not change their minds, no matter what is presented to them. That group should pass on it.

This winter, Ron Howard’s film depicting John Chapman’s Medal of Honor actions will be released. Howard is an excellent director, and at $60 million it will almost certainly be well-produced. For those unable to shift, accept new evidence, and come to a new conclusion, it will be an entertaining film and provide satisfying closure.

A longer trailer is available on their website.

Andy Stumpf, a former Navy SEAL (DEVGRU) and podcaster for whom I have enormous respect, announced a few days ago that he is releasing a multi-part series on Roberts Ridge, totaling some nine hours of conversation this week. The short teasers for the podcast ignited a firestorm all by themselves.

Many people are — understandably — deeply emotionally invested in this story. Or, more properly, stories. If the Navy SEALs left Chapman to die on the mountain, that’s a painful, horrible thing to contemplate — even if the exigencies of the battle gave them no choice. If they were negligent, well… If it is true that Naval Special Warfare attempted to suppress Chapman’s MOH, that is shameful. On the other hand, if the SEALs have had to carry a scarlet letter around because of a legend that isn’t accurate, that, too is a terrible thing.

When two narratives are incompatible, we readily conclude that somebody must be lying. But that oversimplifies — perhaps to the point of being dead wrong — the way people experience stressful, traumatic events, and the way they construct memory and narrative to make sense of what happened, even the way that they interpret what ought to be hard evidence.

Let me be clear: I do not believe in the insidious notion that we all have “our truth” and that “my truth,” however derived, must be held as absolutely valid and even definitive. But I do believe that people acting in good faith can have wildly differing understandings of what the truth is, cleaving to something that feels real and absolute, but is actually amorphous, seen but dimly through the fog of war, impossible to take within a firm grasp and hold fast.

Of course, if there’s actually bad faith, self-interest, and manipulation involved, the fog becomes impenetrable — and toxic.

One of the reasons I so love the pirate show Black Sails and return to it over and over again, is that it is fundamentally about how and why we craft stories. How stories can be wielded to move men and women to action, how they can be woven to justify the unjustifiable, to suppress truth or to illuminate it. As a passionate pursuer of history, I believe deeply in the importance of good faith effort to come as close as we possibly can to identifying truth — while reckoning with the impossibility of anything like perfection in that endeavor, especially in a field where folklore and history grew from the same soil at the same time, born interlocked.

As Richard Slotkin would tell you, our frontier myths and legends, regardless of their factual truth, shaped the nature of our future actions, of our concept of our nation, of our history.

And this forces us to  reckon with Captain Jack Rackham’s assertion that it all may not matter in the end — that Story will always be more powerful than history:

A story is true. A story is untrue. As time extends it matters less and less. The stories we want to believe… Those are the ones that survive, despite upheaval and transition, and progress. Those are the stories that shape history. And then what does it matter if it was true when it was born? It’s found truth in its maturity… Because what’s it all for if it goes unremembered? It’s the art that leaves the mark. But to leave it, it must transcend. It must speak for itself. It must be true.

I would never argue that the truth doesn’t matter (neither is Rackham, you’ll note). The truth of a searing event like the Battle of Roberts Ridge is important. I will take in every story that is to come on this event — Ron Howard’s movie, the Ground Truth docuseries. I’ll be locked in on Stumpf’s Cleared Hot Podcast all this week. I have no dog in any fight here, and I do want to know the truth of what happened on Roberts Ridge. But I suspect that there will remain unknowables, and I suspect that what I will come away from all of it with is a renewed conviction that we must ultimately rely on Story to tell us who and what we are, and that the stories that we want to believe will continue to be the ones that survive.

UPDATE:

The first segment of the Cleared Hot Podcast series on the Battle of Roberts Ridge is now up. I’ll post the others as they come available.

Here in Central Oregon we had an abrupt shift to autumn conditions, which has included several days of fine Scottish weather that made me break out O, The Dreadful Wind and Rain. Saturday, however, delivered about as perfect an Indian Summer day as a Frontier Partisan could hope for. I hied it out to the range fairly early, before the inevitable influx of yahoos that any fine Saturday brings out.

The battery was the CZ 452 and the CZ 457 and the S&W 617 — all .22 LR, for I intended to be out for hours and to burn 300 rounds. The course:

Rifle (iron sights only) — mix of 4.5″ steel and 4.5″ clay targets:

• 125-yards down to 75 yards off a bag (3-inch steel at 75)

• 60 yards off-hand/kneeling

• 25-yard ready-ups (with movement)

Revolver:

3; 7; 15 yards — 4.5″ clays

Since I turned 60 last year, I have modified the workout side of the FP Biathlon. I am being especially mindful of my joints, particularly the shoulders. A physical therapist friend of mine told me something that really stuck in my head:

“If people would take 15-20 minutes to do a thorough warm-up before any physical activity, I probably wouldn’t have a job.”

I’ve been particularly observant of this principle for a couple of years now, because I have a tendency to be impatient and want to get right after it.

The actual work now emphasizes more carries — kettlebell farmer carries and sandbag carries — and sandbag over-the-shoulders (100# and 60#). I have reduced the volume of straight pressing and pulling exercises. It’s not a radical shift, but it’s significant. And I have found that not only have I not lost muscle and strength, I have more capacity, particularly in the core. Carries are where it’s at. I’ve also been doing a lot of sled pulls.

I reduced the number of hard workouts to two a week — down from three or sometimes four — and that has improved recovery and actually improved the workouts themselves. I’ve added in a lot more moderate, Zone 2 cardio work into the mix.

The most important aspect of my training is the impact on the inner man, so it’s important that I am active every day — but moderating the intensity level is necessary, and seems to actually be beneficial. I haven’t weighed myself in a long time, but I know that the front porch has been reduced, which gets harder to accomplish at this age.

I had a bit of a scare earlier this year with some “lightning flashes” at the corner of my right (shooting) eye. Got checked out and it’s a routine phenomenon of aging — a vitreous (eyeball gel) tear. I have no floaters and there was no retinal tear, which was a huge relief. I have a good friend who did have a retinal tear at the same time, and it ain’t nuthin’  you want for your shooting eye. My visual acuity in that eye, is 20/15, which was great to hear.

The episode was a stern reminder that this doesn’t last forever; the practice that brings me great satisfaction and is, in fact, a big part of my sense of myself, will not stay with me indefinitely. Which gives a real sense of intentionality to every session I am privileged to engage in.

As Danny says in The Bird Hunters, “That’s what we came here to do.”

I share this in the spirit of inspiration. I ain’t no Simon Kenton or Sam Brady. I am a good shot — well better than average —  but I am not an exceptional athlete. I’m just a regular guy with strong enthusiasms.

Nevertheless, through consistent — and pleasurable — effort, I remain a fit, strong man at 60, capable in areas that matter to me, that resonate with the history that underpins all my work. I have every prospect of staying that way for a while yet. That’s all I’m after.

I reckon many of the folks at this campfire are getting after it in similar fashion. If you are, keep after it. If you aren’t… get after it. The benefits are legion.

Lift. Shoot. Write.

*Saturday’s FP Biathlon soundtrack was Outlander Season 1 by Bear McCreary and The Deerslayer by Aspen Ridge+Hawken Horse.

Päsesick-Kaskutäu (Nothing But Gunpowder) by Swiss artist Karl Bodmer

Imagine swaggering into the trading post with plenty of plews, looking all hard in your fur-hooded capote, and the women say, “Who is that?!” and the folk reply in hushed tones: “That be Nothing But Gunpowder.”

Crom!

(Note: I actually retitled this post after realizing that the whole thing is, in fact, nothing but gunpowder. Heh!)

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We’ve got us a full-length trailer for The Terminal List Season 2 (True Believer). I know the time in Africa is going to be brief — presumably part of one episode — but man it looks good. I’d watch a whole season of anti-poaching operations, myself, but I doubt that would get a green light…

Anyways… looking forward to another round with Reese.

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SandRhoman History has dropped their second video in a series on Pontiac’s War.

Speaking of staggering sieges…

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Sniping in World War I is a perennial topic of interest for Frontier Partisans — not least because a number of Allied snipers come directly out of a background rooted in frontier heritage.

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Went down a sidetrail chasing British riflery in the American Revolution. British forces had actually started issuing a few rifles in the French & Indian War, and they did so again in the American Revolution, building quite a fine rifle known as the Pattern 1776.

We’re not taking about Hessian Jagers here; these rifles went to British Light Infantry units, and served in a kind of designated marksman role.

Dr. Robbie MacNiven, an academic specializing in 18th Century British Military history writes:

Contrary to popular opinion, Crown Forces were well equipped with rifled weaponry during the conflict – sometimes they actually had more of the things than the revolutionaries.

Besides the Pattern 1776, German jaegers and some Loyalist units as well as some Native American auxiliaries were equipped with rifles. There was also the famed Ferguson breechloading rifle which, to my annoyance, gets much more airtime than the P1776.

The rifle’s barrel was 30.5” with eight-groove rifling, and a calibre of .62. The break-off breech meant it could be easily removed from the stock to clean. It was the first British weapon to include a “captive” rammer on swivels held by a spring, meaning it couldn’t be lost.

The barrel included a backsight and had a brass foresight dovetailed into it. Riflemen were typically equipped with carbine musket balls that they wrapped in patches, as well as superfine powder to aid ignition.

The Queen’s Rangers, a provincial unit commanded by John Graves Simcoe, fielded a full company armed with rifles, and they did good work. Simcoe wrote:

“The riflemen of the Queen’s Rangers, now commanded by Serjeant M’Pherson, were eminently distinguished on this retreat. The enemy’s militia, who followed the army, were kept by them at such a distance, that very few shot reached the battalion; and they concealed themselves so admirably that none of them were wounded, whilst they scarcely returned a shot in vain.”

Redcoat History has a piece on this:

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The first episode of MeatEater’s new Gunfighters podcast is out.

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Here’s a bit of firearms nerdery in the everything-old-is-new-again category.

Some of the oldest arquebuses of the 16th Century had thumb triggers. The Arquebusier would press a button behind the lock with his thumb to drop a tinder stick or a match into the pan to ignite the powder charge, as seen here:

There have been a handful of modern iterations of this concept.

In the early 20th Century, Winchester manufactured a thumb-trigger .22, most of which got shipped off to Australia to slaughter rabbits. I hear tell the guns are really valuable on a collector market.

An outfit called Iron Horse Firearms built a thumb-trigger AR, touting its enhancement to accuracy due to obviating left-right windage errors induced by a conventional trigger pull. Don’t know that I buy that, but I do get a kick out of the Continuity & Persistence.

The final episode of the American Revolution on the Frontier podcast series on the war on the New York frontier is up. It’s titled The Burning of the Valleys. You can access it here or on most all the podcast platforms.

After the Sullivan Expedition destroyed so much of the Seneca Country in Western New York in 1779, the British came back with a (literal) vengeance, with multiple coordinated raids from multiple directions. The campaign of 1780 writ large was called The Burning of the Valleys.

Art by Don Troiani.

This is a longer-than-average episode, and it features Gavin K. Watt’s vivid recreation of the Ballstown Raid, and a portrait of the Tier 1 Frontier Partisan Timothy Murphy.

This was a challenging episode to put together, but I really enjoyed it, because it came vividly to life for me as I worked.

Next, it’s on the the Ohio River Valley Frontier and Old Kaintuck — and some of the most epic tales in Frontier Partisans history.

Spirit of America by David Wright.

In 1773, Boone, just a couple of years back from his epic long hunt into Kain-tu-kee, sold his farm in the Yadkin Valley, North Carolina, and led a party consisting mostly of his Bryan family relations to rendezvous with another party under the leadership of Captain William Russell to push through the Cumberland Gap and settle in the new Promised Land.

Boone sent 16-year-old James and two other youths to pick up seed, flour and farm implements at Russell’s settlement. Boone planned to rest his party and allow James to catch up. Henry Russell, the captain’s son, a 16-year-old woodsman named Isaac Crabtree, and two slaves, Adam and Charles, joined James on the trail. They were about three miles short of their rendezvous when darkness overtook them and they made camp on the night of October 9.

At dawn on October 10, a mixed party of Cherokee, Shawnee and Delaware Indians attacked them in their bedrolls. Crabtree was wounded by an arrow but was able to roll out and get into the trees and make an escape. Another teen also escaped into the trees, but he was mortally wounded, and his remains would be found months later. Adam also fled and hid in a pile of downed timber, where he could hear what went down in the camp.

Henry Russell and James Boone were both shot through the hips and immobilized. The native raiders tortured them with knives, ripping out fingernails and toenails. One bashed in Henry’s head with a war club. James apparently recognized a Cherokee raider as a man named Big Jim, who had visited his father on the Yadkin. Adam heard James plead for his life. Then he heard him beg for death.

Negro Charles was taken prisoner by the raiders, but they would quarrel over his ownership and one of the raiders tomahawked him.

Adam eventually made it to Daniel Boone’s column, and Crabtree made his way to a settlement. Rebecca Boone gave her husband a clean linen sheet for a shroud, and Daniel buried his son along the trail. The mission to settle Kain-tu-kee was abandoned… for now.

A young frontiersman depicted by David Wright.

Isaac Crabtree escaped the horror — and he wanted payback. The teenaged Frontier Partisan attended a horse race in the Watauga settlements on the border of North Carolina, Virginia and what would become Tennessee, where he recognized one of the raiders, a man called Cherokee Billy. Crabtree shot the Indian dead. Some accounts indicate that he tried to kill a couple of Billy’s companions, too, but was restrained.

This was big trouble. Cherokee Billy was the nephew of a prominent Cherokee chief, and the settlers feared that the killing would spark a war. A reward was offered for Crabtree’s arrest, and it appears that he may have been tried for it, but he was not convicted. The backcountry settlers may not have been too happy with Crabtree for the danger his actions caused, but they would have been entirely sympathetic to his rage and hatred after what had happened to him and his comrades. Thus was the cycle of frontier atrocity and reprisal perpetuated across three generations.

When war broke out with the Cherokee in 1776, Crabtree would join an expedition that burned several Cherokee towns. As the Revolutionary War on the frontier heated up, he served multiple tours as a Ranger around forts on Virginia’s western borders. He was a skilled woodsman, and it appears that he preferred operating solo or with a single companion.

His Revolutionary War pension application reports on a larger patrol — and offers insight into how chaotic a forest firefight could be. (Note: this thing is one enormous run-on sentence. I’ve added punctuation and paragraph breaks to make it more readable).

[In] 1778 he again turned out a volunteer Ranger he thinks about the last of may and went to the Elk garden Fort [in present Russell County] and Joined Captain John Kincaid and ranged about that Fort the States that Colonel Daniel Smith came to the fort and took him and several other men making ten and went down Clinch and as they came to glade hollow fort [on Cedar Creek near Lebanon in Russell County] they met with about the same number of Indians[.]

[H]e and Burton Litten and William Priest were some distance in front of the others when they met the Indians. The Indians were laying in ambush in two sink holes and on each side of the trace and when they arose and placed themselves in a fighting attitude and fired on him when the firing commenced[.]

Colonel Smith and the balance with him wheeled and ran he and his Company kept their ground waiting for them to come up until the Indians or some of them were within Thirty or Forty yards of affiant and the balls flying round him like hail stones from a thunder storm he began to think it was time to take care of himself[.]

[S]eeing by this time the whole of his company had taken to flight and left him[,] he retreated a short distance and was closely pursued by the enemy and wheeled to see how near they were to him and saw one within thirty yards[. ] He immediately raised his gun and taking sight at his breast fired and the Indian fell back and uttered some coarse loud noise[.]

He then wheeled and took to flight himself and the Indians after him still firing upon him until he overtook some of his company and tried to rally them but without effect they continued their retreat and two of them were killed while they were running before him he then began to mend his gate [gait] and soon overtook the foremost man and went by his Colonel Smith but was unable to rally them[.]

The two men killed were the two who went in advance with himself Burton Litten and William Preest[.]

He states that they remained ranging about through the country until in September[;] the conclusion was then that the Indians had left that part of the Country and the men all dispersed about the last of September[.] He thinks he was out this trip about four months making about sixteen months[;] these were the principal tours he served in the revolution[.]

He states that he was afterwards frequently engaged in scouting parties guarding the frontiers and keeping back the Indians but was not under any particular officer.

Crabtree would eventually settle in Kentucky after the war. He was one among an unsung cadre of Frontier Partisans who operated in the backcountry in a brutal conflict that decided the fate of the whole continent.

*

The torture and murder of the James Boone party was part of an escalation of tensions in the Appalachians and along the Upper Ohio River, where opportunistic and murderous banditti, both white and red, destroyed a fragile peace and precipitated Lord Dunmore’s War. The horrific murder of James Boone has haunted me since I first read of it as a child. That his torturer was known to him, that he had broken bread at the Boone farmstead, adds to the horror, and reflects how small the frontier world was, despite the vastness of the landscape. Violence was not impersonal on the Ohio Valley frontier. It was personal, soul-searing, and spread across generations.

*

All in all, this ain’t Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos.

So goes the first story in The ‘Nam; 1966-1969 Omnibus.

Back in the 1980s, Marvel Comics decided to print a war comic about the Vietnam War. Chief editor Jim Shooter gave the job of development to fellow editor Larry Hama, a Vietnam veteran working at Marvel. Hama hired fellow vet Doug Murray to write it. They decided to use the comic to try to tell what it was like over there.

Comics have a long and mostly venerable history of war stories. Surprisingly many comic creators had military experience. Jack Kirby, often called the most important man in comics, had been a combat infantry man during World War II. Bob Haney, known as Zany Haney for his far out storylines, had been on a ship during the Battle of Okinawa. Artist Sam Glanzman created an autobiographical series about his time in the Navy.

Yet, at the same time war stories would also often be simplistic action-adventure stories. Hama and Murray wanted to do something different. They wanted to tell the story of the average grunt who just wanted to do his job and come home alive. As such the comic happen in “real time” that is each monthly issue represented a month the War. The soldiers would often not see who was firing at them in battle as was often case in real life. Real events would be referenced. There would be “no John Wayne heroics.”

The art was by Michael Golden, Wayne Vansant, the before-mentioned Sam Glanzman, and others.

Murray would craft one of the best and most affecting war comics ever written.

Most of the stories center on the 23^rd Infantry Brigade and its members. The main protagonist is Ed Marks, a green draftee. The first 12 issues follow him as he loses his greenness, and a significant part of his innocence. Later issues would alternate between his story trying to adjust back to civilian life after deployment and the lives of the other soldiers in the 23^rd.

There are some standout stories. These include issue seven’s “Good Old Days” which tells the story of a Kit Carson Scout. That is a former Viet Cong who switched sides to fight for the Americans. The story is a composite of the real lives of three members of the Viet Cong, not all who switched sides.  The following story “In the Underground” deals with the life of a Tunnel Rat. There are also the 5^th to the 1^st tales. Originally published in Marvel’s black and white Savage Tales magazine, these are darker and grittier than the ones about the 23^rd since they did not have to obey the Comics Code Authority, the industry censorship board.

Other issues deal with the Tet Offensive. This is the only the really multiple part story in the Omnibus. It is bloody and grim and deals with how an American victory becomes a defeat in the media. There are also stories on the home front about the anti-war movement which the media also misinterprets. Journalists, whose job is to tell the truth, don’t always do that which is still relatable today. The comic also deals with racial tension between the troops. There is a CO whose incompetence, cowardice, and outright cruelty gets him fragged. There is also a CO who starts green but becomes a competent leader. One issue deals with the controversial Phoenix program, and not really favorably. Apparently, a future issue was going to deal with My Lai.

So there are controversial issues in the book. It, however, avoids preachiness. It tells what happens and lets the reader decide. In time when simplistic narratives dominate the news cycle this is refreshing. I would however say Murray’s sympathy is with the average soldier in the war. The anti-war activists come across as self-righteous and ignorant. That said, the comics also shows the horror of war. Sympathetic characters get maimed and killed. The characters are people with good and bad in them even those on the other side of the war.

The ’Nam would become a surprise seller for Marvel. It would actually be very well received by veterans of the war. While some thought it being a comic book trivialized the war most were receptive to it. The Bravo Organization of veterans would give it award for the best portrayal of the war beating out Oscar Stone’s movie Platoon.

This would not last. Hama would leave the editorship and new editor come in. This editor wanted to bring in superheroes. This would lead to conflict with Murray who eventually left. Other writers would come in. There would be a crossover with the Punisher. So, yeah…

These issues are not collected in the Omnibus. I haven’t read them so I can’t offer an opinion on them really but I don’t really want to read them either. That is because the ’Nam was not meant to be a simplistic action story. It was meant explore something tragic and controversial in American history. Any one who is interested in the war should read the stories in the Omnibus even if you are not a comic fan.

In his afterword, Larry Hama writes:

“Read it and think a little about our politicians and their eagerness to send out our sons and daughters in harm’s way with their hands tied behind their backs by idiotic ‘rules of engagement.’ Read it and ponder our inability to learn from history. Read it and understand why thousands of soldiers come home from war and never talk about it.”

We need to do that.