Category: Vietnam War
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Memoirs offer a new approach to suffering
When Siddhartha first encountered suffering he ran away to the jungle. When I first encountered suffering, I went into a rage, determined to fix the world. Instead of changing the world, Iury, fell apart. That’s when I ran away, but not to the jungle. I ended up living in a garage in Berkeley, one step…
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Ex-pat Brats Come of Age in Saigon
I discovered another author, Les Arbuckle, who like Hanna felt compelled to tell the story of his childhood in that war torn country. His book is called Saigon Kids, An American Military Brat Comes of Age in 1960’s. Despite the similarities between the two stories, they were also totally different, representing a stark contrast between…
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Awakening bad memories helps shape your new life
The intern at the hospital who was accustomed to treating survivors of barroom brawls had no idea how violated I felt. Not wanting to order tests, he brushed off my headache. “Of course it hurts,” he said. “You were kicked in the head.”
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Storytellers shed light on the horrors of war
In my journey to understand as much as possible about life writing, I consider the question many aspiring life writers raise. “Should I approach painful memories, and if so should the memories become part of my story?” Of course there is no one right answer, so to try to understand it more, I consider the…
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Veterans seek healing by cycling through Vietnam
Outside, in the world around them, the world seemed peaceful, while much of the real drama was taking place inside their minds, where memories boiled and occasionally erupted into tears. I empathized with the courage it must have taken to face the country where deep scars were burned into their psyche, and several times I…
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Fog of memoir, fog of war
His strange, impulsive acts remind me of times in my own teenage years when I acted without knowing why I was doing what I was doing, occasionally doing destructive, or even cruel things. It’s difficult to remember those times. It’s certainly uncomfortable. But reading Wolff’s memoir helps me once again stand in that fog and…
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A memoir author’s first book is a triumph over odds
by Jerry Waxler I was excited last night when I reached the end of George Brummell’s memoir, Shades of Darkness. The very last paragraph in the book is about him volunteering to help other struggling people tell their story. (Note to myself: I’ve got to be careful about telling what excites me in a book.…
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