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The greatest beer run ever : a memoir of friendship, loyalty, and war / John "Chick" Donohue & J. T. Molloy.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York] : William Morrow, 2020Edition: First editionDescription: xiv, 248 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cmISBN:
  • 9780062995469 :
  • 0062995464
Subject(s): Genre/Form: DDC classification:
  • 959.704092 DON
Summary: A U.S. Marine Corps veteran-turned-merchant mariner recounts how in 1967 he accepted a neighborhood challenge to sneak into Vietnam, track down local friends on the front line and share beer over messages of love from home.
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Item type Current library Collection Shelving location Call number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Phillipsburg Free Public Library Adult Non-Fiction Adult Non-Fiction 959.704092 DON Available 36748002481234
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY PETER FARRELLY, STARRING ZAC EFRON AND RUSSELL CROWE!

Instant New York Times Bestseller

Instant USA Today Bestseller

"Chickie takes us thousands of miles on a hilarious quest laced with sorrow, but never dull. You will laugh and cry, but you will not be sorry that you read this rollicking story."--Malachy McCourt

A wildly entertaining, feel-good memoir of an Irish-American New Yorker and former U.S. marine who embarked on a courageous, hare-brained scheme to deliver beer to his pals serving Vietnam in the late 1960s.



One night in 1967, twenty-six-year-old John Donohue--known as Chick--was out with friends, drinking in a New York City bar. The friends gathered there had lost loved ones in Vietnam. Now, they watched as anti-war protesters turned on the troops themselves.

One neighborhood patriot came up with an inspired--some would call it insane--idea. Someone should sneak into Vietnam, track down their buddies there, give them messages of support from back home, and share a few laughs over a can of beer.

It would be the Greatest Beer Run Ever.

But who'd be crazy enough to do it?

One man was up for the challenge--a U. S. Marine Corps veteran turned merchant mariner who wasn't about to desert his buddies on the front lines when they needed him.

Chick volunteered.

A day later, he was on a cargo ship headed to Vietnam, armed with Irish luck and a backpack full of alcohol. Landing in Qui Nho'n, Chick set off on an adventure that would change his life forever--an odyssey that took him through a series of hilarious escapades and harrowing close calls, including the Tet Offensive. But none of that mattered if he could bring some cheer to his pals and show them how much the folks back home appreciated them.

This is the story of that epic beer run, told in Chick's own words and those of the men he visited in Vietnam.

A U.S. Marine Corps veteran-turned-merchant mariner recounts how in 1967 he accepted a neighborhood challenge to sneak into Vietnam, track down local friends on the front line and share beer over messages of love from home.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

In this energetic debut memoir, former Marine Donohue recalls an "insane" idea hatched in a New York City bar in 1967 that led him into the war in Vietnam. As a reaction to antiwar protests, a friend suggested that, to show troops some support, "somebody ought to go over to 'Nam, track down our boys from the neighborhood, and bring them each a beer!" Donohue, writing with New York Daily News columnist Molloy, was the logical choice to be that "somebody," since, as a civilian seaman in the U.S. Merchant Marine, he possessed a military "Z" card, which allowed him to travel to the country. After a monthlong trip across the Pacific on a freight ship, Donohue managed--with the help of U.S. soldiers willing to break some rules--to actually find some of his friends, including the brother of a grade school friend, whom he links up with just after his ship drops anchor off Qui Nhon; another friend he locates nearly 100 miles away, after managing to get two flights and a helicopter ride from helpful GIs. But the heart of the book is when he finds himself alone in Saigon during the Tet offensive; as he witnesses the storming of the U.S. embassy, he recognizes the false bravado behind his mission and, after arriving home, realizes the antiwar protesters "were at least trying to stop this madness." Donohue's memoir is a fascinating, vividly narrated recollection of the chaos of the Vietnam War. (May)

Kirkus Book Review

The story of a patriotic prankster's freelance incursion into Vietnam, bringing cheer (and beer) to Americans at war. As Molloy notes in the introduction, "Chick" Donohue seems an archetypal two-fisted, old-school New Yorker, a military veteran who'd become a Teamster and tunnel "sandhog." In 1967, then a Marine veteran and merchant mariner, he accepted an outsized challenge at Doc Fiddler's Bar in the Irish enclave of Inwood: to bring beer to neighborhood youth serving in Vietnam. "I was spurred to go to Vietnam," writes Donohue, "by the sight of antiwar demonstrators in Central Park protesting against my friends from the neighborhood who were serving in the military. Having served overseas in the marines myself, I could only imagine what my buddies were feeling." This tale seems improbable even by the standards of military yarns, but the narrative gains authenticity from the credible perspectives of the young American soldiers as well as the gritty sense of place. Sailing from New York to Vietnam, Chick found friends from Inwood, who reacted with humorous disbelief. Dramatic tension increases with the authors' account of Chick's observing combat patrols firsthand. He missed his ship and was stranded in Saigon just before the Tet Offensive, witnessing the enemy attack on the U.S. Embassy. Stuck in a war zone, Chick scrounged food and lodging from old friends and colorful new acquaintances, his views transformed alongside American soldiers' worsening fortunes: "I had believed that we were winning....But our leaders had told us Charlie was losing the war, and then they pop up all over the country? Tet changed everything." Finally, Chick escaped aboard a supply ship that needed crew following the attacks--"I was never so happy to be below deck in a hot engine room"--and he acknowledges his changed perspective: "I wanted to go home...and all the mariners and all the soldiers in Vietnam to go home." Indeed, a poignant afterword highlights the fortunes of the soldiers encountered on Donohue's beer run, not all of whom returned. An irreverent yet thoughtful macho adventure reflecting the tumult of a fast-fading era. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
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