Episode 5: “Nothing Is Over”

Do We Get To Win This Time? is a podcast about how Hollywood has depicted and defined the Vietnam War. You can listen on the Big Picture feed. The following is an excerpt from Episode 5: “Nothing Is Over.”

In the late ’60s, right around the time Jan Scruggs landed in Vietnam, a young writer named David Morrell arrived at Penn State University. Morrell was from a small city about an hour outside Toronto—a place that, back then, didn’t get a lot of American news.

But at Penn State, the war was a constant topic of conversation. Morrell’s fellow students were petrified of being drafted.

“I remember one of them talking about shooting himself in the foot,” Morrell says. “That’s the trade to not go to Vietnam. Right away, of course, as a Canadian, I’m wondering what this is.”

Over the next few years, Morrell learned about the situation not just in Vietnam, but also in America. He saw the anti-war protests, the riots in cities like Detroit and Los Angeles, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.

It was as though he’d come to the U.S. just in time to watch it come undone.

“Night after night after night, there was violence,” he says. “And I had one of those moments where I said, ‘It’s like the war came home.’”

During his Penn State years, Morrell began teaching. Some of his students were returning Vietnam vets. They told him how difficult it was to transition from wartime to peacetime.

“That is when I learned about the nightmares,” he says. “I learned about the reactions to loud noises. I learned about difficulties in relationships. Difficulties controlling emotions. Alcohol abuse. These young men were very forthcoming about their experiences over there.”

These experiences would influence a book Morrell was writing, one that would take his earlier observation—the war is coming home—and bring it to life.

It was an action novel, one that follows a quiet Vietnam vet as he passes through a small town in Kentucky. That’s where he butts heads with the local police chief, a Korean War vet named Teasle. The cop simply won’t leave this kid alone, leading to a days-long chase through the woods, where the young vet uses his Green Berets skills to survive—and to kill.

Morrell’s book had a great title: First Blood. But he had a harder time figuring out what to call his main character. The hero of First Blood was a Vietnam vet. And he was tough.

“I wanted one name, and it had to be the sound of force.”

One day, while he was typing away, his wife brought home some groceries. Lost in his writing, he grabbed an apple.

“And she said, ‘It’s a Rambo apple.’ I said, ‘What?’ She said, ‘A Rambo apple.’ I said, ‘Spell it.’ She said, ‘R-A-M-B-O.’”

First Blood was published in 1972. I know this isn’t a movie recommendation podcast or a book recommendation podcast, but Morrell’s book is great. Taut, intense, very satisfying. And it was a hit, with enthusiastic reviews in Time and The New York Times.

“Sometimes, a book comes out when it should.”