A More Complete View of Vietnam

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Controversy has always surrounded the Vietnam War, and now journalist and historian Nick Turse shockingly exposes previously unheard of atrocities his new book Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. The shame associated with My Lai, the massacre that killed scores of innocent Vietnamese citizens, was supposed to be an anomaly, but Turse proves, through classified documents and first-person interviews with both soldiers and Vietnamese witnesses, that mass killings and civilian assassinations were, in actuality, much more common than previously thought. Worst of all, Turse concludes that many of these killings, rapes and pillages were committed with official sanction by the U.S. government, which was dead set on equating body count with victory. Kill Anything that Moves captures, in glaring detail, the true nature of modern warfare as well as the disturbing cost of occupying a foreign land. Turse highlights, in this depressingly important chronicle, the cruelty of U.S. troops upon scores of civilians and raises questions about today’s ongoing conflicts.

Turse, who was a graduate student at the time he started writing Kill Anything that Moves, was originally interested in PTSD in soldiers but soon stumbled upon a story much more staggering in scope. The book became a New York Times bestseller and Turse was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for his writing. His previous works have appeared in numerous publications including The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Chicago Tribune. Nick Turse will appear at Boswell Book Co. on Wednesday, August 7 at 7 p.m. in an event co-sponsored by Veterans for Peace