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(More customer reviews)Mark Busby's FORT BENNING BLUES will appeal best to male readers who were subject to the Vietnam War draft, an entire generation of American men who, one way or another, had to wrap their heads around the idea that though there was now such a thing as "limited war," there was still no such thing as "limited death." In other words, they had to confront the very real possibility that they could give their lives for a war with very uncertain goals. Their fathers and grandfathers may have fought in World War II or Korea (or both), but the objectives of WWII were never in doubt, and Korea came early enough in the "cold war" that almost everyone believed Communism both monolithic and omni-threatening. Vietnam was 'way different, and Busby explores that difference via his protagonist, Jeff Adams, a Texan with a proud sense of heritage and common sense to go with it: enough pride to recognize his legacy and responsibility, enough common sense to be fearful and to desire a defensible meaning to the risks he faces.
We follow Adams as he takes the route many bright young men of the era took--Officers Candidate School. Adams's "blues," then, have to do with the dues he knows he must pay, and the novel's resonance comes from the way Busby re-creates those troubled times, times that exacted internal wars of conscience among most Americans, regardless of whether or not they were of draft age. Some readers might consider Busby's literary debts ranging from William Faulkner to British World War I-era poet Henry Reed a bit too artificial; still others might think he makes too much use of coincidence (Adams happens to be William Calley's driver during the My Lai trial, and he manages to see newspaper headlines that inform him of the Kent State killings).
Adams's resolution of his conflict--his Fort Benning Blues--may not please all readers, but it is a resolution many of that era found, making this as genuine a tale of courage as any told by other "veterans" of the Vietnam War, a war that we now know even our President, Lyndon Johnson, tragically questioned, tragically could not bring himself to stop.
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