RIP Michael Herr

Author of Dispatches, one of the best pieces of war correspondence ever:

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Also from Dispatches, a portion of a vignette from Khe Sanh:

The cultural reference:

Never mind that he wrote all of Martin Sheen’s narration for Apocalypse Now AND adapted Gus Hasford’s mind-blowing The Short Timers into the script for (the decidedly inferior, in this raccoon’s opinion) Full Metal Jacket, although Hasford was unhappy with the results and got booted off the project.

Dispatches is a singular read. I meself have never been without a copy in one form or another since the early 80s, and re-read it regularly every couple of years.
He will be missed.

(Posting, in the embedded link immediately above, a preserved copy of the now-404ed Time magazine Larry Burrows pic of the Marines at Khe Sanh. (Thanks, Internet Archive!))

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Inferior to Apocalypse Now or just inferior to The Short Timers?