The Foreign Service Journal, March 2009

70 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 0 9 B O O K S the choices forged in Jakarta andWash- ington during these fateful years.” A concluding chapter tracing that legacy is particularly valuable for policy prac- titioners today, as they review the Bush administration’s embrace of foreign militaries as partners in “the war on ter- ror” — even when their subordination to civilian control, accountability before the law and respect for human rights are all dubious at best. Edmund McWilliams, a Foreign Serv- ice officer from 1975 to 2001, was po- litical counselor in Jakarta from 1996 to 1999, and received AFSA’s Christian Herter Award for constructive dissent by a Senior FSO in 1998. Since retiring from the Service, he has volunteered with various U.S. and foreign human rights NGOs. Parallel Wars The Tragedy of Vietnam, Again Christopher Noble, BookSurge, 2008, $17.99, paperback, 422 pages. R EVIEWED BY D AVE H OWARD What influences social responsibil- ity, political accountability and indi- vidual social commitment? Such profound yet practical questions, which I suspect most Foreign Service members ponder throughout their ca- reers, prompted Christopher Noble to write The Tragedy of Vietnam, Again . This memoir brings together recollections of the myriad individual, social and political events of the mid- to-late 1960s that influenced the mind of a sensitive young man. Chris Noble has never forgotten that he comes from a New England family with a long history of social commitment. That tradition began in the early days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, inspired acts of heroism during the Revolutionary War, and continued through distinguished mil- itary service during World War II and the Korean War. Imbued with that legacy of patriotic sacrifice, he spent his formative years attending college in Iowa, where he also absorbed the values of the Midwest. Like thousands of other American youngsters at that time, the author was drafted into the military in 1964 and received orders that eventually sent him to Vietnam. There, as a medical platoon leader, Noble aspired to live up to the connotations of his