Arts of War on the Web

Peg Mullen, an unassuming Iowa farm wife and mother who became a passionate national antiwar activist following the death of her son Michael in 1970 in Vietnam, died Oct. 2. She was 92 years old.

Michael Mullen’s death from friendly fire and his mother’s reaction to it was the subject of the best-selling 1976 book, Friendly Fire, by C.D.B. Bryan, as well as a memorable 1979 TV movie in which Carol Burnett played Peg Mullen.

Here’s my review of Mrs. Mullen’s 1995 memoir, Unfriendly Fire, which appeared in the August-September 1995 VVA Veteran:

The term “friendly fire” has never been the same since the publication of C.D.B. Bryan’s 1976 book of the same name. That book–and the riveting 1979 TV movie starring Carol Burnett–told the painful story of the aftermath of the death of Michael Mullen, an Americal Division infantryman who was killed in his sleep in February 1970 by an errant American artillery round. The book and movie focused on Michael Mullen’s mother, Peg, of Waterloo, Iowa and her wrenching personal and political reactions to her son’s tragic death.

Peg Mullen tells her version of the story in Unfriendly Fire: A Mother’s Memoir (University of Iowa, 156 pp., $22.95, hardcover; $12.95, paper), a very moving, unique contribution to the literature of the Vietnam experience. This readable, short book opens a window on what Peg Mullen aptly calls “the forgotten people in the Vietnam War,” the families of those who were killed. The chapter titled “Your Son is Dead”–in which Peg Mullen recounts the events of February 21, 1970, when she and her husband were notified of their son’s death–is beautifully (and heartbreakingly) written.

William Keith Nolan, one of the most prolific and most accomplished military historians of the Vietnam War, died February 9 of lung cancer. He was 44 years old and was not a smoker; the disease was hereditary.

Nolan, known to his friends as Keith, pioneered and excelled at his own special brand of military history: the excellent combining of in-depth interviews with those who took part in the fighting and deep research into the official records.  That, along with a fluid writing style, added up to ten (eleven, counting one he co-authored) of the best books on Vietnam War military history.

We reviewed nearly all of his books in our “Books in Review” column in The VVA Veteran, including what turned out to be his last one, House to House:Playing the Enemy’s Game in Saigon. Here’’s what I wrote in the May-June issue:

Keith Nolan is one of the most accomplished chroniclers of Vietnam War military history. In his ten previous books—including Battle for Hue, Death Valley, and Operation Buffalo–Nolan used a deft combination of interviews with participants and in-depth research into official records to come up with incisive, readable battle narratives. Nolan continues to use his excellent M.O. to good effect in his latest book. This time Nolan recreates the fighting that took place between the Army’s 9th Infantry Division and several VC regiments who were holed up in Saigon three months after Tet ‘68.”

Other reviewers had similar thoughts about Nolan’s work. “I’ve never read a better account of a battle, and I’ve never been prouder of the American fighting man, nor more scornful of his political and high-ranking military leaders,” the historian Stephen Ambrose wrote about Nolan’s Ripcord: Screaming Eagles Under Siege, Vietnam 1970 “To those who want to know what it was like to be a grunt in Vietnam, I recommend Ripcord without stint or reservation.”

Kieth Nolan’s other books are Battle for Saigon: Tet 1968, Sappers In The Wire , A Hundred Miles of Bad Road (with Dwight Birdwell),The Magnificent Bastards: The Joint Army-Marine Defense of Dong Ha, 1968, Into Laos: The Story of Dewey Canyon Ii/Lam Son 719, Vietnam 1971.

Keith Nolan left a nine-year-old daughter, Anna Britt Nolan. A trust fund has been set up in her name.

Anna Britt Nolan Trust
c/o First Bank
6211 Midriver Mall Drive
St. Charles, MO 63304

Jack Lewis, a Marine who served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam and who also was a screenwriter, pulp novelist, and the co-founder of Gun World magazine, died May 24 at age 84 of lung cancer in Hawaii.

Lewis enlisted in the Marines at age 18 and served from December 1942 to September 1946. A machine-gunner in WWII, he was awarded the Bronze Star for bravery as a combat correspondent in Korea during his 1950-56 second stint of active duty. Lewis then went into the Reserves, and was discharged in 1958, but was recommissioned in 1969 and went to Vietnam where he served with III Marine Amphibious Force.

While on reserve duty at Camp Pendleton after World War II, he was a technical adviser on the famed 1949 John Wayne film Sands of Iwo Jima. He later wrote the screenplay for the 1963 movie A Yank in Vietnam, which was filmed in South Vietnam. Lewis went on to write hundreds of magazine articles about Hollywood stars, a ton of western and detective novels, and several other books including Tell It to the Marines (1966).

There was an extensive obituary of Lewis in The Los Angeles Times.