Brendan’s Alternate Tagline for Until the Last Gun is Silent:
Sometimes they aren’t even silent at home.
Quick synopsis:
The stories of Coretta Scott King and Skip Johnson during the Vietnam War.
Fact for Non-History People:
There are 96 recognized African American Medal of Honor recipients.
Fact for History Nerds:
Coretta Scott King was a classically trained violinist.
My Take on Until the Last Gun is Silent:
Protesting can be complicated. It can also be complicated to take on a bunch of Vietcong with only your sidearm. These two sides of a coin come together in Matthew Delmont’s Until the Last Gun is Silent. The book follows Coretta Scott King as she leads protests against the Vietnam War. Dwight “Skip” Johnson, on the other hand, goes to Vietnam where he wins the Medal of Honor like a damn boss. Unfortunately, the highest of military awards would prove to be an albatross around his neck.
Delmont goes between each of these lives while tracing the eventual commingling of the peace movement with the civil rights movement. I learned a tremendous amount about each in this book and Delmont writes an easy to read book from a prose perspective. I did feel, however, that both Skip and Coretta get short shrift at times. Coretta’s story takes a big of a backseat to her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Additionally, MLK does not come off looking good in a few anecdotes. It humanizes him a bit more to see situations where he doesn’t necessarily live up to the paragon of virtue history focuses on. Coretta, however, comes off positively saintly in Delmont’s retelling. I think this has less to do with Delmont’s unwillingness to dive into all sides of Coretta and more to do with keeping the narrative moving. As it stands, Coretta’s chapters will often be about a lot of people other than her until later chapters where she shines completely.
Ultimately, I wanted more time with Skip. I will fully admit my bias here. Skip was an Army tanker like me, and I am also the son of a Vietnam veteran. Skip’s story was so inspiring, visceral, and tragic that I could have devoured a whole book just on him. The complete fumbling of his PTSD diagnosis (another similarity I have with him) is the ultimate tragedy that continues to happen to this day. I think there was much more to be mined here, but I will defer to Delmont because he is clearly a talented writer that maybe he got as much as he could from the records that existed. Either way, there is a lot to like about, and learn from, this book.
(This book was provided as an advance reader copy by NetGalley and Viking Books.)
Verdict:
A different look at the Vietnam War and the home front.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.