Bryan, a 40-ish novelist who is probably tired of being identified as the late John O'Hara's stepson, relates the Mullens' evolution and torment in "Friendly Fire," which has just finished running piecemeal in The New Yorker. Never mind if you read it there: buy the book. The magazine treatment did not do it justice for two reasons. First of all, The New Yorker's hopelessly anemic typography distracts from the strength of the story, and, secondly, this is one tale that should not be chopped into pieces separated by week intervals.

The great war stories do not deal solely with the death of soldiers but with the death of idealism, and Bryan's handling of that theme is certainly the finest that has come out of the Vietnam War; in fact, not since Siegfried Sassoon's World War I classic, "The Autobiography of a Fox-Hunting Man," has the theme of rural gentry turned anti-war and anti-government been dealt with so well. (p. 1)

With the assistance of Bryan, who started as an objective reporter and wound up a very involved participant, the official account of [Michael Mullen's death in Vietnam] … is ferreted out. It came to this: There was nothing mysterious about his death. He had died, as the Army said from the first, because of a faulty job of artillery firing….

Satisfied with the official explanation that had been given him, Bryan felt that the Mullens would be satisfied, too, so he headed back to Iowa feeling a bit like God….

He quickly found instead that Peg and Gene rejected the official account and seemed to resent his defense of it. Which, as Bryan makes clear, is supposed to show that when citizens such as the Mullens are shredded in the military's bureaucratic machine they can never be put together again. It's a satisfying moral. But it leaves untouched the more interesting moral that Bryan has supplied his readers, perhaps unwittingly, as a bonus.

Just as dramatic as the change that occurred in the Mullens as they dealt with the Government was the change that occurred in Bryan as he dealt with the Mullens. Suddenly he became fed up with them. Oh, to be sure, he still sympathizes—as in spirit did the 56 percent of the Americans who told Gallup in 1970, the year of Michael's death, that it had been a mistake to send troops to Vietnam. But at last he had had enough of their misery, enough of their complaints….

It was a startling 179-degree turn for Bryan, made more startling by the fact that his new hero was none other than Colonel Schwarzkopf, Michael's division commander, whom he portrays, perhaps correctly but irrelevantly, as a good soldier just doing his job under unhappy circumstances….

There is a fine analogy—between Bryan and the Government—to be drawn from this turnabout, which can be seen if we go back to the beginning.

Bryan got the idea for writing "Friendly Fire" when revisiting Iowa in 1970 (he had earlier taught at the Iowa University Writers Workshop). On this visit he first heard about the Mullens….

Thus, with the best of intent and highest purpose, like American diplomats and military brass invading Vietnam, Bryan invaded the Mullens' lives. But also like the Americans who tried to shape the lives of the Vietnamese, he simply did not have the background to fully understand how his subjects viewed their world and weighed their enemies. He did know that Peg believed "There's only one side when you lose your son"—the anti-war side. But Bryan did not fully realize how total the commitment could be. He tended himself to be more tolerant, to see both sides, the Mullens side and the Schwarzkopf side.

And when the Mullens would not bring their personal war with the Government to a conclusion on a timetable that Bryan thought fair, then he wanted to wash his hands of them. The do-gooder, having failed in his "Iowazation program," had run out of patience….

"'I guess,' [Bryan said to the Mullens], 'I guess I don't really know what you want from me anymore.'

"'What we want from you?' Gene said indignantly. 'The whole thing is this: when you came out here, you wanted something from us!'"

It was true, of course. Under the aegis of giving aid, Bryan had come to use them. And, to his everlasting credit, as soon as the Mullens had pointed this out in the kitchen exchange, Bryan, unlike our Government officials apropos Vietnam, was decent and candid enough to admit it. This side of his character, portrayed best in his failure with the Mullens, is one of the things that makes "Friendly Fire" such an appealing book. (p. 2)