Remembering Philip Caputo, who wrote an unflinching Vietnam War memoir

Fresh Air

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🗓️ 15 May 2026

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

Philip Caputo wrote the 1977 acclaimed and unflinching memoir ‘A Rumor of War,’ about leading a Marine platoon during the Vietnam War. It taught him a painful truth. “I had discovered that I had a capacity to be violent and dark in my actions in a way that totally shocked me,” he told Terry Gross in 2005. He went on to become a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Caputo died May 7 at 84.

Also, celebrated naturalist and nature documentarian Sir David Attenborough turned 100 this month. We listen back to his 1995 interview with Terry Gross about working in the field.

John Powers reviews the new film ‘The Wizard of the Kremlin.’

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Fresh Air. I'm David B. and Cooley. One of the most unflinching and acclaimed memoirs of the
0:05.3	Vietnam War was about a young lieutenant, one of the first Americans to fight in the war, leading a
0:11.0	marine platoon through the jungle. A rumor of war was written by Philip Caputo, who died last
0:17.0	week at the age of 84. In reviewing the book in 1977, John Gregory Dunn described it as,
0:24.0	quote, heartbreaking, terrifying, and enraging. It belongs to the literature of men at war, unquote.
0:31.3	The book became a bestseller and was adapted into a TV miniseries. After the war, Caputo became a journalist
0:38.5	and was part of the Chicago Tribune Pulitzer Prize-winning team
0:42.2	that uncovered violations of voting procedures in a March 1972 primary.
0:48.2	While a foreign correspondent in Lebanon during their civil war,
0:52.4	he was captured by Palestinian militants and held for a week.
0:56.6	Later, in another incident, he was shot multiple times by a different group of militants in
1:01.6	Beirut. He returned to the States, and during convalescence for his injuries, he wrote a
1:07.5	rumor of war. Caputo went on to write two other memoirs, ten novels, two short story collections, and four works of nonfiction.
1:16.7	His love of adventure is detailed in an obituary on his website, which reads, quote,
1:22.3	Caputo caught a leviathan-sized marlin off Cuba's shores, hunted big game in Africa, roughed it in Australia's
1:29.8	outback, cast flylines in the world's oceans and streams from Alaska to New England, and read
1:36.2	books as voraciously as he wrote them. We're going to listen to Terry's 2005 interview with
1:42.4	Philip Caputo. At the time, he had written the novel Acts of Faith set in war-torn Sudan about aid workers and missionaries there.
1:52.2	You've been in war zones as a Marine and as a journalist. Can you talk a little bit about the difference between being there as a fighter and being there as somebody just covering the fighting?
2:04.7	Well, probably the major difference is that the war correspondent can get out of there almost whenever he chooses or she chooses.
2:16.9	The soldier is stuck there, is under orders, and there's no return ticket.
2:23.9	There's no going back to the hotel in another day or two or three.
	...

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