Two men and war

Philippines, 1963 a US military hospital.
Sergeant Slag Krummel just been evacuated from Vietnam, seriously injured.
Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, he assaulted carers and will gradually remember everything that led to his injury.

Summer 62, Krummel was rehired in the army for three years. Tough guy, but academic, he arrives in his new assignment in the Philippines, 721st detachment transmission. His squad has ten hotheads, united by the taste of the feast and women.
A personality comes off the lot: Morning Joe. Allergic to authority, leftist and provocative, unstable and capricious, Morning gradually befriends his sergeant and the bane of Lieutenant Dottlinger, stumbled and psycho.
The atmosphere is virile and fraternal, like "The heads burned". In an idyllic setting and miserable, far from home, frustrated by the military authorities and a routine life, men Krummel end up wallowing each permission in alcohol, prostitutes, filth and vomit. Until they left for Vietnam to install a telecommunications base ...

This novel, written in 1967, published in 1969, is the first of James Crumley, great writer from the school of Montana and former military. But it is also, to my knowledge the first story that depicts the inside the US military in Vietnam, without falling into the official propaganda of the era like "The Green Berets".
Precursor of a whole American culture especially film (Apocalypse Now, The Deer hell, Full Metal Jacket, Platoon ...) the story of war, friendship and madness has been translated into French and 1992, which explains its low reputation.
Writing is powerful with impressive intensity for the ultimate episode of the attack Viet Cong. The atmosphere dark, heavy and moist, mixes irony, emotion and the absurd.
This strong aeuvre and too little known is to discover. To read and to read.