It is difficult to know where to begin an analysis of [A Rumor of War, a] first-rate memoir of a Marine lieutenant's experience with war. It is unquestionably the very best work to appear on the Vietnam war and one of the finest pieces of American writing on war from the ground in this century. The fascination of Caputo's account is not that his experiences were typical or his reactions to the war commonplace among veterans—both of these interpretations would be only partly true. What Caputo has done is to capture the sounds of men at war as no other American writer has ever done…. If there is any book published last year that ought to be read by everyone, it is this one.
A review of "A Rumor of War," in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Winter, 1978), p. 25.
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