Fire in the Hole: A Mortarman in Vietnam

by J. Michael Orange

Book Overview

How does a young man coming of age in the 1960s go from seminarian to soldier? What can scare an average kid from Cleveland into killing for his country? The answer: Vietnamthat soul-sucking war that... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0595160034
• ISBN13: 9780595160037
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 0.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Back in time

J. Michael Orange takes us back in time. It is a trip meticulously detailed, yet filled with raw emotion and wonder. Orange brought me back to Madison, Wisconsin, 1969, my sophomore year in college. I had just gotten notice of my 1A Draft Status. And so for a time I faced what Michael Orange faced. The difference, thanks to the lottery and a high draft number, was that I did not have to choose as Orange did. But this 19-year old kid made a pre-emptive choice by volunteering for the Marines and a stint in the war. It was behavior that ran in the family. We witness the young mortarman's strange mixture of repulsion and exhilaration as he discovers the terrors of war. He is at once detached and trapped in wonder. At times, you feel like a John Malkovich junkie, taken into a mind fighting wars on many fronts at once. War with his girl's parents and with his own. War with his priest. And, most of all, war with himself. Joining the Vietnam War at its peak was Orange's greatest battlefield manuever, but he got more than he bargained for.Just staying alive is the real mission and Orange found this stark fact didn't change when he came home. What struck me most was an encounter in a junior high class Michael spoke to 15 years after returning home. What happens in that classroom tells a lasting story of a war those who lived it can never seem to forget. And, thanks to Michael Orange, we all can begin to understand why.J. Michael Orange has made a work of stunning honesty. This book is well worth the read.

a necessary, heartfelt reality check lest we forget.........

A lot continues to be written about the pros and cons of America;s most confusing overseas conflict. As Myra McPhearson pointed out in her seminal `Long Time Passing', none of us were untouched. Particularly for those of us who enetered our adulthood during those times this is painfully true. Mike Orange's book touched me to the core and helped me peel away another layer of pain from that time. Courage to `tell it like it was' with no varnish, an individual's soul searching viewpoint and the honesty of a personal spiritual quest is rare in literature about such experiences. Mike spares no one, especially himself, yet levies no charges. His conclusions are about his own life and as the reader, I'm allowed to bring the insights to my own moral cases. For those of us who are the `aging warriors' from that time, Mike has shared a gift from a soldier's heart. I'm grateful to him for his honesty, his courage and for the insight he lends to partiotism. I was fortunate to have him sign my copy of his book at a reading. He wrote simply, `Thank you for your service to our country'. That was the first time I have heard that since I came home from the Army in 1969.

Powerful stuff

Within the realm of Vietnam memoirs, Michael Orange's book really stands out. It's the tale of a young man who at one moment is entertaining the priesthood, and the next he's in Vietnam. The point of view is what makes this book so special. It's the perspective of the little man who finds himself the fodder in a battle of giants, in a war that has nothing to do with him. Orange brings to this a thoughtfulness and sensitivity. His is not so much the voice of rage, but the voice of the deeply screwed, trying to figure out why this all came about. Best of all, it's intensely personal. Few books on Vietnam -- or any other war, for that matter -- offer such a clear and vivid portrait of what it was like to be reluctantly pulled from America and forced to shed blood on a foreign shore. It's just plain powerful.

What is most personal is most universal

This is a compelling memoir. Orange shares deeply personal experiences at war in Vietnam, at Kent State, and at home as a veteran, friend, and father. In the process, we come to see the familiar in his often painful journey. Orange's shift from deeply Catholic and patriotic beliefs to disillusionment and ultimately joy and faith in life reflects the experiences many of us went through (or still struggle with), in one way or another. I think this book will appeal to vets, their friends, spouses and children, who will learn much about themselves and the dramatic changes in American culture wrought during the 60s and 70s--as they relive one man's experiences, they'll view their own in a new light. A good read for students of American culture. The chapters move quickly, each one as a standalone story, building to a satisfying conclusion that enriches our appreciation of the impact of Viet Nam on our lives.

Review: Fire in the Hole

My brother has finally made his peace, his absolution about a time in his life where his horrid memories remained locked tighter than a mummy's tomb. The tomb has been opened as Orange takes readers from Marine Boot Camp to the jungles of VietNam on a journey so explicitly unravelled you'd think you were with him every anxiouss step of the way.Orange's account is vidid, clear and noncondescending--a profile of a young man experiencing his rights of passage through a hellacioius war that nobody wanted to be in and everybody wanted to be out of.From passing the poop at Parris Island, South Carolina to passing the mortars at Que Son Mountain, Orange shares his tears and fears, love and losts and whole lot in between his journey that started as a middle class wanna-be priest from the suburbs to a mortar man in Nam.It's a cover-to-cover, one-sit read----and that's not because he's my borther. He did a damn good job!Dennis E. Orange, Brother, Denny at Kent State University, BA, Journalism, 1972