Book Review

The War Machine
By Barry W. Levy
Published by Double Dagger Books
(March 28, 2024)
264 pages

By Marc Yablonka

Well-written Vietnam War fiction always borders on nonfiction. The parlance, the slang, and the idioms that emerge from America’s now second longest war are embedded deeply within the dialogue and the action. “Bookoo,” “Dinky Dao,” and “Lock and Load” come immediately to mind. That is especially true when it’s written by a veteran who was there. In the case of the novel The War Machine, by Canadian writer/actor/documentary filmmaker Barry W. Levy, who did not serve in the military, that last credential is not present, but it matters not. The War Machine (Double Dagger Books, 263 pages, paperback $19.99, Kindle $6.99) takes readers on a literary ride as realistic as the film Platoon, and as indicative of the world back home as The Deer Hunter.

“The writer is Canadian?” a reader may ask. “What’s the connection?” Simply that, according to author Levy (and Fred Gaffen, in his own book Unknown Warriors: Canadians in the Vietnam War), estimates of 30,000 to 40,000 Canadian young men served in American uniforms in Vietnam. They did so because they thought the cause was right. Or they considered it payback for the American flyers who came north and enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II before the US entered the war. More likely was the fact that many Canadian males were attending US colleges and universities during the war and, thus, were subjected to the draft.

In addition, Monsanto and Dow Chemical, manufacturers of the chemical Agent Orange and Napalm respectively, maintained factories where both were manufactured and tested in Canada.

Legend also holds that President Lyndon Johnson tried desperately to pressure then Canadian PM Lester Pearson into officially committing Canadian troops to Vietnam, but Pearson refused. Depending on the story one believes, LBJ either reacted negatively to an anti-Vietnam War speech Pearson gave, or personally lifted Pearson up by his collar during the latter’s visit to the LBJ Ranch. In either case, Johnson was purported to have told Pearson, “You’re pissin’ on my rug!”

Levy tells us that American recruiters steered Canadian volunteers towards the Green Berets and the Military Assistance Command Vietnam-Special Operations Group (MACV-SOG), which operated in the Central Highlands with the indigenous Montagnard troops, many of whom spoke French, because recruiters erroneously thought that all Canadians spoke French, too.

Though not originally French-speaking, The War Machine’s main character, David “Kick” Tacker picked up enough French to get by in Vietnam as a special operator attached to MACV-SOG. He travels in his mind between his tours in Vietnam, and 1988, which finds him in Vancouver, British Columbia, attempting to make sense of both his past and his present.

“When Kick opens his eyes, he’s looking down at his cowboy boots, and notices they need a good shine. But there’s something weird about the floor. It looks runny. On the other side of the stall door, he sees the tiny bare feet of a child. He opens the door and finds the young Vietnamese girl he saw a few days ago. He’s been seeing her off and on for years. One of his boots is on her shoeshine box. `What are you doing here?’ he asks. The girl looks at him. `Shoeshine?’ She’s very calm as she shines his boot, which is melting into the box. `Big jungle, soldiers fight,’ the girl says softly. `Huge tiger picks me up. Meet your ancestors. Shoeshine?’”

Soon Kick is in Dusty’s Bar, remembering his first day in country out loud for Kelly O’Leary, a reporter for the Vancouver Telegraph newspaper. She only had an inkling about Canada’s connection to the Vietnam War… until she interviewed Kick.

“Just when it was feeling like a pretty cool vacation, the pilot tells us, ‘We’re coming into Cam Ranh Bay, and it’s a hot LZ.’ That means a landing zone under fire. The plane came in fast and steep. There were no stairs, and we all jumped. Mortars were exploding all over. Three men broke their legs jumping. We found cover until the shelling stopped, and that was our ‘Welcome to Vietnam’. From that point on, it was a long waking nightmare,” he tells her.

The War Machine is full of battle rattle that makes the reader feel as if he or she is a participant in the war. As in this scene where Kick s platoon is engaged in a fire fight with Viet Cong.

“Two more VC patrols scream into the LZ. Frosty and Beach jump from the Huey and help Hollywood, while Watt grabs Kick. They all scramble inside the bird as it heaves itself off the ground with Hollywood’s legs still dangling out the door. The on-board gunners open fire from both sides at the approaching Viet Cong. AK-47 rounds ping off the bottom of the Huey for a few seconds until they are lifted out of range. Kick strains his ears for the hiss of a rocket-propelled grenade, but it never comes,” Levy wrote.

At the end of the book, Kelly O’Leary, the journalist who had interviewed Kick in Dusty’s Bar in Vancouver, is before the TV cameras on ABC News face to face with famed anchorman David Brinkley, exposing the US and the world to the extent to which Canada’s participation in the Vietnam War was far more than welcoming draft dodgers across the 49th Parallel.

The War Machine would be a fascinating compliment to the bookshelves, not only of Vietnam veterans, but also professors and students of the war, Canadians, and anyone else who was previously unaware of how deep Canada’s connection to the war in Southeast Asia really was.