The Element of Surprise Book

I am not sure when I originally heard of "The Element of Surprise" though I think I remember seeing it for sale in catalogues for "Ranger Joe's". I probably bought the Kindle edition after seeing an advertisement for it online, or possibly because of its mention in the bibliography of "GURPS: Special Ops" or "GURPS: SEALs in Vietnam".

I've read a lot of Vietnam books, but mostly written by Rangers and LRRPs operating further north in the mountains, where the enemy was usually North Vietnamese regulars (soldiers) instead of Vietcong guerillas.


SUMMARY
Darryl Young was 19 years old when he completed Navy SEAL training and was sent to Vietnam in 1970 for six months of operations in the Mekong Delta. Collected from his experiences and also drawn on the memories of his fellow SEAL team members, Young describes dangerous operations in waist-deep water hunting down and hiding from an elusive and lethal enemy. The area, weapons, tactics, and personalities around him are explored, and he offers his own observations (limited to his viewpoint at the time) on the innocent civilians, the enemy forces, and the conflict in general.


OVERALL: 2.4 out of 5
Darryl Young's book provides the reader a good idea of what operations were like for a young SEAL in Vietnam. He describes the missions, the people around him, his own attitudes at the time, the weapons, the enemy, and the environment.

The book is not organized very well, and sometimes it feels like some events are being related out-of-order to satisfy the need to use it as an excuse to describe a weapon or person (that probably should have been described earlier). A lot of the writing is repetitive (though Young undoubtedly felt some of the missions were repetitive too).

There's a fair amount of adult language, and Young doesn't shy away from his attitudes toward the native Vietnamese people. He frequently wonders why he is in Vietnam, describes his dislike for the people, and plans to never come back. Toward the end he becomes softer, saying that the enemy were an honorable and driven people who fought for a cause, the average Vietnamese farmer was a good person, and he ends the book with a surprise that I wasn't expecting. He does not tell the audience what his feelings are when he published the book, twenty or so years after the conflict.

If anyone is looking for insight regarding the moods and social swings back in the United States, and how it influenced fighting men in Vietnam, this is the wrong book. Young only spends a couple of sentences on his own history prior to SEAL training, and does not once mention the protests or opposition to the war back home, even though he relates his own confusion about American involvement after seeing how unmotivated many South Vietnamese people were to fight for their freedom.


RATINGS BY CATEGORY
CHARACTERS: 2 out of 5
Due to this being a nonfiction book, "Characters" refers to how well the author brings people to life in the writing.

Young trained with several of the people he served with, and the ones who receive the most attention are Weber, Reeves, and Bruce. The motivations and relationships of the others around him are never explored, and not much time is spent describing any deeper bond except hard training, narrow escapes, and parties when they were away from the field. It's obvious that all of these men trust each other, but you don't find out if anyone had a favorite song, if anyone had a girl back home they were writing to, or anything like that.


PACE: 3 out of 5
Young keeps things moving fast, but the narrative becomes repetitive. Some unique operations are mentioned near the end, but only in passing. It would have been nice if he focused more on these (such as missions where they dressed in enemy gear) instead of the time spent describing operations that were virtually identical to each other.


STORY: 3 out of 5
Young's Vietnam experience is quite different from the others I've read. Unlike Gary Linderer ("Eyes of the Eagle" and "Eyes Behind the Lines"), Young trained from the beginning for special operations and he doesn't spend much time getting used to things after arriving in-country.

The missions are different too. The SEALs weren't handed as many reconnaissance missions, and Young spends more time describing attempts to take prisoners than anything else (there were also two attempts to rescue prisoners during his time in Vietnam). Also unlike Linderer's narrative, the SEALs were frequently successful in their "snatch" missions.

A fair amount of time is also spent relating the off time, parties, and relaxation Young participated in. Without going into too much detail, he is open about at least some of his sexual exploits with Vietnamese prostitutes, and how marijuana helped him get through his six months. Sometimes he spends too much time justifying this particular habit instead of moving on.

The weapons and equipment of both SEALs and their enemy, including firearms, boats, rocket launchers, clothing, etc., is described in almost textbook detail. Though eventually these "diversions" from the primary narrative almost drew a groan when I saw them coming, they're kept fairly short.


DIALOGUE: 2 out of 5
Young doesn't do a lot of dialogue, which makes sense since he wouldn't remember the conversations verbatim. He includes some of the "typical speech" he would have heard during mission briefings, and some of the common things Vietnamese people said to him in their limited English.


STYLE/TECHNICAL: 2 out of 5
There is nothing to complain about in the word-for-word execution of the book. Young is literate and can describe things clearly, though there were a couple of editing errors in the Kindle edition I read.

Problems reside in the larger layout. The book reads like the author recorded most of it, recalling memories and sensations from memory, and thus there is a lot of stuff that is repeated over and over and over again in sentences that are almost identical to ones that the reader has already read. Some of this enforces the "feel" that Young is trying to impart, but at other times it muddied things up.

I also don't like the way some experiences (or "episodes") seem to exist only for the author to use it as a gateway to describe some weapon or piece of equipment. This wasn't a problem at first, but when you're three quarters of the way through the book and it's suddenly time-out to learn about a common weapon that the reader should have been told about near the beginning, it doesn't work.

In short, the organization of the book is jumbled. It would have been better if there was a larger "info dump" near the beginning, so that the reader is familiar with the things the author is describing later and can really focus on what is being related.