European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 13, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Vietnam tales link the past to the future i he things they carried by Tim of Brien Houghton Mifflin 273 pp., $18.95 Richard Eder los Angeles times by is he still writing about the Vietnam War Tim of Brien imagines being asked Why Isnit he writing about happier Days or at least using the Grace and Power he showed in a going after cacciato to help readers sort out what is happening now of Brien whose reflections and comments run through this new Chain of Vietnam stories faces the question. He takes it up puts it Down takes it up again. He answers that you get your material where you find it. But realizing that the answer is a Little too simplistic he reconsiders a a in a 43 years old and in a still writing War stories. The remembering makes it now. And sometimes remembering will Lead to a Story which makes it forever. That a what stories arc for. Stories Are for joining the past and the  the Best of these stories a All of which Are written with Sharp vision and perception a Are memory As prophecy. They Tell us not where we were but where we Are and perhaps where we will be. O Brick draws upon his own experience in Vietnam but he says the characters and Inci Tim of Brien dents Are fictional. He casts himself though both As a fictional member of the platoon where the stories Are set and As the narrator meditating upon them years later. His voice advances halts doubles Back. An incident will be told in two or three different ways it will be interrupted it will Peter out and resume. Sometimes it will deny some of what it has told us or Tell us that it happened differently. A How to Tell a Story in wartime is the title of one set of Story fragments reflections and comments. A Story cannot be told straight it informs us. What is to be told is so hideous unpredictable and absurd that the narrator has to manipulate it Duck away and invent. In War you Tell a Story to escape or change the thing you have to Tell. The most extraordinary piece in the collection is the first which bears its title. A what they carried begins As nothing but a list. It is a list of everything that the members of a platoon carry and the weight of each item. Knives heat tabs wristwatches dog tags Mosquito repellent chewing gum Candy Salt tablets packets of Kool Aid a rations water and so on �?15 to 20 pounds. Helmets a 5 pounds boots a 2.1 pounds. Rifle a 8.2 pounds loaded extra ammunition 14 pounds grenade launcher 5.9 pounds 25 grenades a 16 pounds. A medics kit a 20 pounds. And then a Host of individual choices foot powder canned peaches comic books condoms dope a Bible a Slingshot brass Knuckles and much More. Of Brien goes on and on gradually extending the verb a to  the soldiers carry love letters photos fungus lice and each other when wounded. They carry Lucky charms and the thoughts they cling to. They carry grief terror confusion. And gradually a haunting picture is assembled. Each item has its purpose for killing protecting preserving. Yet All the purposes add up to a grotesque purposeless Ness. These soldiers Are not so much warriors As carriers of War pack mules on which firepower is placed and among which a terrible mortality is inflicted. This absurd cargo of purposes they carry through a land and a War from which they Are utterly divorced and through which they move in a state Between dream and Nightmare. It is an ultimate indelible image of War in our time and in time to come. The Book will be available through stars and stripes bookstores. Reviews organized to be the Best by Susan Silver Adams Hall publishing 376 pp., $9.70 in paperback a if you done to know where you re going you la end up someplace  in the opening remarks of her Book Susan Silver quotes that King of the Malaprop ism Yogi Berra. Berra May have come up with some classic a and often quoted one liners in his time but there is no arguing that he knew where he wanted to go As a baseball player. He wanted to be a major leaguer and to be the Best ballplayer he could be. No one can dispute that Berra a member of the Hall of Fame attained both goals. And goals is what Silver is All about. She Points out in her Book that one has to have a target or the use of this Book or any other organizational tools is useless. The Book is easy to read and a perfect reference piece for organizing ones life a both at work and at Home. Written in a Crisp concise manner it offers no complicated formula for becoming better organized. It is More of a step by step guide on How to use what materials Are readily at hand. There Are subheads and a Quick scan outlines at the beginning of each of the 12 chapters showing Silver a goals for the following pages and making it easier for readers to find the problems they wish to work on. Mike Genalo stars and stripes new York Bureau the evening news by Arthur Hailey Doubleday 576 pp., $21.95 after a six year silence Arthur Hailey has returned with another meticulously researched and Well written Story. Just As a Airport a a a hotel and a a wheels stripped the mystery from the air travel hotel and automotive industries so does the scenes of a major television network news operation at a time of both internal and external crisis. In today a society in which a network Anchorman May have a greater name and face recognition than most International political leaders the plight of Cool and heretofore unflappable newsman Crawford Sloane when terrorists Zero in on his family is big news. Efforts to confront the threat make for High drama. Flitting Between new York its suburbs and the steamy Jungles of Peru a news team from Cuba to a fictional amalgam of Abc lbs and Abc news finds itself fighting terrorists who Are every bit As faceless As and Only slightly less treacherous than the corporate villains undermining the teams Effort from within. Although a few Loose ends Are never quite resolved the Climax is a Dandy. Don g. Campbell los Angeles times Happy trails by Berke breathed Little Brown $8.95 paperback Berke breathed saddened millions of readers when he ended his popular comic strip a Bloom county a in september. But this uneven final anthology does not represent his Best work and suggests that he had lost interest in the strip. A Long sequence in which Donald Trumps brain is transplanted into Bill the cats head lacks the iconoclastic Edge of breathed a better satires a such As Oliver Wendell Jones a Star wars plan to trap enemy missiles in an orbiting net of Dollar Bills. But the spoofs of other strips at the characters wrap party recall the Gleeful irreverence that made a Bloom county popular and the final image of opus the Penguin trudging away As the familiar settings recede into the Mist is surprisingly poignant. Breathed has said that a comic strip is a fragile entity with a life Cycle of its own a Happy trails suggests that he was right. Charles Solomon los Angeles times All books available at stars and stripes bookstores