Lost Soldiers, by James Webb.
New York: Bantam Books, 2001.
$25 - 384 pages.

Twenty-nine years ago this month, the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam and the Viet Cong signed a cease-fire agreement that was intended to end the war in Vietnam. Although the United States began to obtain the release of its prisoners of war — some were never accounted for by the American government — it soon became clear that the war itself would continue. Over the protests of the South Vietnamese, the peace accords allowed North Vietnam to maintain forces in the South. Soon fighting broke out again, and by the spring of 1975 North Vietnam had successfully conquered the South, leaving U.S. hopes of stemming communism in that region as dead as Kipling’s India.

But what has happened in Vietnam since then? Readers seeking insight into the life of a country in which tens of thousands of Americans lost their lives would do well to turn to James Webb’s latest novel Lost Soldiers. Webb, the author of other books about the war and about military life, including Fields Of Fire and A Country Such As This, has written in Lost Soldiers an excellent account of a soldier coming to terms with his own war and of Vietnamese life as it is lived today in Saigon.

Brandon Condley, who fought for five years in Vietnam as a U.S. Marine, now works to recover the remains of missing U.S. military personnel. While helping Professor Hanson Muir recover the remains of one soldier, Condley discovers that the soldier’s dog tags do not belong with the skeleton. Condley and Muir then begin their search for a pair of American deserters known as Salt and Pepper, men who had joined the Viet Cong and had killed several U.S. Marines, including two of Condley’s men.

Although this search is what carries Webb’s novel, it is the picture of current Vietnamese life that will fascinate most readers. Webb, a highly decorated Marine officer and the former Secretary of the Navy, has frequently traveled to Vietnam these last 10 years, and his knowledge of the country is reflected in his book. Here we meet Dzung, Condley’s best friend and a South Vietnamese war hero who now pedals a cyclo — a sort of rickshaw — for a living, and learn of the struggles of his family in the impoverished District 4 sector of Saigon. We meet Colonel Pham, who fought with the Viet Cong and lost three children to American bombs, and his daughter Van, who wants to exchange the burdens of her country for the luxuries and freedoms offered by the West.

From Lost Soldiers we learn also about the daily lives of the Vietnamese; the battle of the poor in District 4 for adequate food and medical care; the spiritual struggles of old soldiers like Colonel Pham who fought for a dream but who see that dream often diminished by the bureaucrats around him; and the clamorous, fervent search for money and power in the streets of Saigon. Webb takes us many places: a Buddhist temple, the old American Embassy, the corridors of communist rulers, the black market, the Rex Hotel and the byways and back alleys of the former capitol of South Vietnam.

It is clear from Webb’s book that all the soldiers depicted — South Vietnamese, Viet Cong and American — are lost in some sense, lost in the present-day world that seems so distant from the war, and lost too in that they are both strongly connected to a powerful past but can no longer touch that past in any tangible way. Near the end of the book the three soldiers — Condley, Dzung, and Colonel Pham — each come to a separate peace with the war, giving the story an aura of hope rather than despair.

By combining this portrait of Vietnam with his tale of adventure and vengeance-with the help of Professor Muir, Condley does go after the two deserters — Webb has written a novel that should appeal to a wide variety of readers. His old fans should not be disappointed here, while readers new to Webb will surely want to seek out and read some of his other novels.

(Jeff Minick lives in Waynesville and can be reached at saintsbookco@aol.com)