by Boomert - All Guts and No Glory by Bob Buick & Gary McKay 07 Jan 2010

Without rhetorical embarrassment, Bob Buick speaks of the Australian `warriors' with whom he served in Vietnam; with undimmed animosity he classes as `traitors' civilians who reviled him when he came home. His bluntly titled memoir, All Guts and No Glory (with which Vietnam veteran and author Gary McKay `helped') seeks to answer such broad questions as `what was Vietnam like?' and, more locally, `what did a platoon sergeant such as Buick do?'. Details of military training and jungle warfare, of the relation of non-commissioned officers to other ranks and of the battle of Long Tan (where Buick won a Military Medal) are described efficiently and evocatively. The book is a solid addition to the growing number of memoirs of the war. Yet it has as much to do with vindication as remembrance. Buick assails `myths' about Long Tan with an eye on his own reputation as well as the Australian army's. All Guts and No Glory reveals a man still embattled; provides pointed if unwitting evidence of how this divisive war continues to be fought; and shows how ambiguously veterans are rewarded. For Buick, no recognition of this `Long Tan warrior' and his comrades will ever be adequate to their sense of service and sacrifice.

C. 2000 Thorpe-Bowker and contributors