short-timerss3images.coroflot.com/user_files/individual_files/... · disturbing, often very funny,...
TRANSCRIPT
The Short-Timers
The
Shor
t-Tim
ers
By: Gu
s Hasfor
d
Forget all the myths about honor and glory...this is the real war.
“Powerful And electrifying”—Colin Wilson
The snipers zero in on us. Each shot becomes a word spoken by death. Death is talking to us. Death wants to tell us a funny secret. We may not like death but death likes us. Victor Charlie is hard but he never lies. Guns tell the truth. Guns never say, “I’m only kidding.” War is ugly because the truth is ugly and war is very sincere.
The Short-Timers
“brilliAnt.”
—Chicago Tribune Book World
“Arresting.”
—Atlantic monthly
“extrAordinAry.”
—Philadelphia Inquirer
A BAnTAm PrESS Book
ToronTo • nEW york • lonDon • SyDnEy • AuCklAnD
ISBn 1-55972-306-8 u.S. $6.95 (Canada) $16.95
the short-timers
To be an epic film called The Full metal Jacket
The Short-Timers, a leather-neck version of Catch 22, is a first novel and it is extraordinary. Hasford knows his subject. The driving and often brilliant first-person narrative carries you out of your chair and deposits you into the clatter of a jungle patrol. The writing is crisp and tough. There is an enormous feeling of horror. Arresting, disturbing, often very funny, honest and accurate, chock full of undeniable truths, The Short-Timers is an unforgiving look at a savage, unforgivable time.
read it if you dare.
Gus Hasford in Vietnam