Dispatches is a New Journalism

New Journalism

New Journalism was a style of 1960s and 1970s news writing and journalism which used literary techniques deemed unconventional at the time. The term was codified with its current meaning by Tom Wolfe in a 1973 collection of journalism articles he published as The New Journalism, which included...

 book by Michael Herr

Michael Herr

Michael Herr is a writer and former war correspondent, best known as the author of Dispatches , a memoir of his time as a correspondent for Esquire magazine during the Vietnam War...

 that describes the author's experiences in Vietnam as a war correspondent for Esquire

Esquire (magazine)

Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...

magazine. First published in 1977, Dispatches was one of the first pieces of American literature

American literature

American literature is the written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United States. During its early history, America was a series of British...

 that allowed Americans to understand the experiences of soldiers in the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

. At a time when many veterans would say little about their experiences during the war, Dispatches allowed for an experience and understanding of the war like no other source to date. The book is noted for a visceral, literary style which distinguishes it from more mundane and accurate historical accounts.

Featured prominently in the book are the journalists Sean Flynn

Sean Flynn

Sean Leslie Flynn was an American actor and freelance photojournalist best known for his coverage of the Vietnam War. He started a news service in Saigon with John Steinbeck IV, son of the American author.Flynn was the only child of the marriage of Errol Flynn and Lili Damita...

 and Dana Stone

Dana Stone

Dana Stone was a U.S. photo-journalist best known for his work for CBS during the Vietnam War....

 and the photojournalist Tim Page. Only briefly does Herr mention that the first two were captured and presumed dead.

Dispatches was reprinted in 2009 by Everyman's Library as a contemporary classic.

In screenplays

Several of the fictional (composite character) soldiers mentioned in the book were used as the basis for characters in the movies Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard , of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces...

and Full Metal Jacket

Full Metal Jacket

Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 war film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. It is an adaptation of the 1979 novel The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford and stars Matthew Modine, Vincent D'Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey, Arliss Howard and Adam Baldwin. The film follows a platoon of U.S...

.