Review: In Pharoah's Army by Tobias Wolff

 In this extraordinary memoir of Wolff’s Vietnam  experience, there is a haunting scene that  reveals the major cultural differences between  the American soldiers and Vietnamese  culture. Wolff was a first lieutenant (he was  a special forces member) assigned as an adviser  to a South Vietnamese unit. He had spent a  year at language school in the United States  and was fluent in Vietnamese. He and some  ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) soldiers  are hanging out when two of the ARVN  find a small puppy wandering around. Wolff  watches, annoyed, as one of the soldiers swings  the puppy by a leg around his head and then  ties it to a tree. Wolff wanders over and asks  what they intend to name the dog. The Vietnamese  laugh bemusedly at this remark, but when Wolff persists, they laugh maliciously and  reply, “dog stew.” The sergeant grabs the dog  and, knowing it will drive Wolff nuts, swings the  puppy slowly over the fire. Wolff tries to get  them to stop, knowing they are playing with his  mind, but the cultural reality and his whiteness  prevent his interference. 

 
Racial issues pervade the story. Wolff was  attacked by a group of Vietnamese outside a  bar. He keeps yelling he must be the “wrong  man,” but they continue until another American  steps out of the bar and the attackers realize  they have the wrong person. Wolff realizes that to them all white people look the same. When  he tries to explain it to his black sergeant, the  sergeant understands him immediately and simply  says, “You nigger.” The analogy to his experience  in the United States is unmistakable.  

Wolff's analysis of the Tet offensive is striking.  "As a military project Tet failed; as a lesson it  succeeded. The VC came into My Tho and all  the other towns knowing what would happen.  They knew that once they were among the people  we would abandon our pretense of distinguishing  between them. We would kill them all to get at one. [Iraq come to mind, anyone?:] In this way they taught the people  that we did not love them and would not protect  them; that for all our talk of partnership and  brotherhood we disliked and mistrusted them,  and that we would kill every last one of them to  save our own skins. . . .They taught that lesson  to the people, and also to us. At least to me."