Dispatches

Herr struggles with his role as a “war correspondent.” It is a special breed of person that voluntarily joins up to walk alongside the Marines, live under similar conditions, and take many of the same chances with their life that the Marines take. It is a role that the Marines struggle with, as well. It often takes a while before they feel comfortable interacting with the correspondents, whose job it is to make the war real for the people back home.

While introduced to Sean Flynn earlier in the book, it’s in “Colleagues” that we get to know him better as a person. For most of the Marines, it does not matter that he is the son of a movie star; Errol Flynn did not mean as much for that generation. But it is Flynn’s movie star looks that would blow “their minds, the way he blew minds all over Vietnam” (194). His glamorousness seems more fitting for a movie about a war than for the real thing. Some of the more “serious” journalists discount Flynn; they “could not afford to admit that anyone who looked as good as Flynn looked could possibly have anything more going for him” (195).