Kent Anderson’s Sympathy for the Devil exploded into my consciousness the fall of 1990. I had picked the novel up in a used bookstore not knowing what in impact it would have on my life.

Kent Anderson is a veteran of the 5th Special Forces and served in the Vietnam War. When he came home, he worked for the Portland Police Bureau and Oakland PD. Between shifts he wrote his novel about Hanson, a draftee and college student, during the latter half of the war. Most of the novel takes place in Vietnam where Hanson operates out of a remote camp with his A-team and a unit of Montagnards conducting cross border recons into Cambodia. Throughout the story are flashbacks to Hanson’s life before the war that gives the reader a primer to what went in to making Hanson Hanson.

Anderson’s writing is style is brutal and to the point and he doesn’t pull his punches; Hanson and his buddies, Quinn and Sliver, are hard men in a hard land where death comes easily. Still there are moments of great hilarity such as the tale of a masturbating monkey.

What Sympathy for the Devil did for me was cement my desire to join the United States Army and enter the world that Kent Anderson had described so well. Over my 21 years of service, a copy of this book has gone with me.
It’s a remarkable book that deserves a read.