GOING AFTER CACCIATO

New York, NY: Dell, 1979. First Edition, First Thus . Soft cover. Very Good/None as Issued. Text/BRAND NEW, showing faint margin discoloration. Softcover/VG; sound w/light edge & surface wear, and light soiling to lower back. Novelist Tim O'Brien (1946 - ) served in Vietnam 1968 - 1970 in the 3rd Platoon, Company A, 5th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Division --- in the division that contained a unit involved in the My Lai Massacre. O'Brien said that when his unit got to My Lai region (referred to as "Pinkville" by the U.S. forces), "we all wondered why the place was so hostile. We did not know there had been a massacre there a year earlier. The news about that only came out later, while we were there, and then we knew." An extraordinarly insulated happening. This novel, Going After Cacciato, won the U.S. Nat'l Book Award. Narrated in the first person by Paul Berlin, the story is about Cacciato, a member of Berlin's squad, who goes AWOL to walk from Saigon to Paris, away from war to peace. It became the squad members' duty to find him and bring him back. Incidently, "Cacciato", ironically, means "hunted", or, "caught" in Italian. Was Cacciato deranged or institutionalized warfare? Both? A moral dilemna.