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Review Written By Bernie Weisz, Historian, Vietnam War. "The Phantom Blooper" by Gustav Hasford 10/15/10 BernWei1@aol.com Title of Review: Gustav Hasford:Capital Punishment For Library Violations! Pembroke Pines, Florida USA Contact: BernWei1@aol.com In reading Gustav Hansford's "The Phantom Blooper", as a historian my gist was to extract any parallels to reality that occurred in the quaqmire of America's debacle in Vietnam. While finding that out and much more, I also discovered how much of an enigma Hustav Hansford truly was. Born November 28th, 1947 in Russellville, Alabama, Hansford was a U.S. Marine and served as a combat correspondent in Vietnam. He wrote a semi-autobiographical novel after the war which was later made into a best selling movie called "Full Metal Jacket". Authored by director Stanley Kubrick , and writer Michael Herr, who wrote "Dispatches" as well as Hansford, it was nominated for an Academy Award. Ultimately, Hansford's contributions became a point of contention between the three, and Hasford abstained from attending the Oscar Awards. Two years before Hasford authored "The Phantom Blooper", he was arrested in San Luis Obispo, California for stealing almost 800 books across the U.S. and Great Britain. He was accused of having "bibliophilia", an obsessive-compulsive disorder that centers on the collecting and acquiring of books to the point where social relations are ignored and health declines. Books are pursued by the sufferer of this psychological condition to the point where they are not to be admired or read, but simply to be obsessively possessed. Hansford's defense at his trial, costing over $20,000, was that he had "borrowed" the missing books to serve as the basis for an ultimately never published book on the U.S. Civil War. He was sentenced to half a year in jail, of which he served 90 days and vowed to pay fines derived from the royalties that resulted from future sales of "The Phantom Blooper", published in February, 19