Hard Men Humble; Vietnam Veterans Who Wouldn't Come Home by Stevenson, Jonathan - 2002

New York: The Free Press, 2002. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Dan Bibb (jacket photograph) and Brendan Murphy (A. xii, 228 pages. Illustrations. DJ is in a plastic sleeve. Contents are: The Veterans; Home Alone; Valor Transformed; Valor Denied; Valor in Protest; Valor Ignored; Valor Defended; and Our Own Buried Lives. The author of We Wrecked the Place chronicles the moving and startling tale of twenty Vietnam veterans who have remained or returned to Southeast Asia to live amid the battlefields of their youth, seeking redemption and refusing to return to a nation that cannot accept the sacrifices they made. Jonathan Stevenson is senior fellow for U.S. defense and managing editor of Survival at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). He was previously professor of strategic studies at the U.S. Naval War College, and he has served as director for political-military affairs, Middle East and North Africa, on the National Security Council. He is the author of several books, including Thinking Beyond the Unthinkable: Harnessing Doom from the Cold War to the Age of Terror and "We Wrecked the Place": Contemplating and End to the Northern Irish Troubles. The veterans are Jim Agnew, Alan Dawson, Isreal Freedman, Izzy Freedman, Denis Gray, Eric Herter, Glenn Holdhaus, Jeff Johnson, Stan Karber, Greg Kleven, L. C. Linder, Bill Maddox, Jeff McLaury, Keith Mishne, Douglas Peterson, Pete Peterson, Ken Richter, Andre Sauvageot, Chuck Search, Mark Smith, Les Strouse, Robert Taylor, and Mac Thompson. Derived from a Kirkus review: From the editor of international-affairs journal Strategic Survey, a sympathetic and insightful survey of American veterans who have taken up residence in Southeast Asia. For various reasons, the men Stevenson profiles are unable to extricate themselves from the experience of Vietnam. Whether haunted by guilty memories of acts they considered war crimes, driven by a need to heal and reconcile, or motivated by affectionate respect for the Vietnamese, many of Stevenson's vets returned in search of a personal fulfillment they could not find in the US. The reasons range from mundane to complex. One man cannot stop remembering the fleshly pleasures of Bangkok. A highly decorated career Special Forces officer stays in Southeast Asia because he won't give up what he considers an honorable fight in a just cause. Others, horrified by the war and the way it was fought, or tortured by its appalling images, have spent years trying to come to terms with their experiences. Some are involved in charitable or relief work in Asia. One veteran, a former acquaintance of Dean Rusk's, runs assistance programs for the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation from Hanoi. Another, alienated from American society, teaches English in Ho Chi Minh City. Some expatriates, more philosophical about the war, simply learned to like Vietnam and its people during their service; some pursue closer commercial ties between Vietnam and the US. While their reasons for their chosen exile and their opinions about the war's merit vary, Stevenson's vets commonly express anger and bitterness toward inept politicians and especially unappreciative fellow citizens. Without addressing the morality of the war itself, Stevenson argues that these men exemplified intrinsically important values of sacrifice, bravery, and fidelity to duty that the nation ignores at its peril in an increasingly dangerous world. A well-analyzed and evenhanded treatment of the survivors of America's most controversial conflict.