Customer Reviews

Land of Childhood's Fears - Faith, Friendship, and The Vietnam War

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

This author has a way of grabbing you by all your emotions at once. He starts off with a short autobiography, and how he came to be in Vietnam with a USAF intelligence outfit. He and a buddy are devastated by an errant airstrike inside Cambodia which they provided intelligence for, that ended up burning over 40 schoolchildren alive. He agonizes over this, and gets involved with the MEDCAP program in an effort tomake things right. It is unclear to him, but the fact that they helped civilians didn't sit too well with the enemy, who ended up retaliating against a village by bombing it. His team goes in after the bombing, and he and a buddy rescue a small boy who later dies in the MASH unit.

There is a beautiful chapter of poetry, in which the author tells the story of Vietnam in drastic, compelling verses that just rip your heart out. He has a chapter on Operation Phoenix, which he described in a radio program as "a terrorist organization". There is an entire chapter of veterans reminiscing about the war, and they come up with an entirely new theory on the JFK assassination.

The author sure did his homework - with over 1,000 footnotes and references to cross-check his information. This is by far, the very best book on war I've ever read. The publisher's web site just announced a hardcover version of the book - I bought mine directly from a link on the publisher's site at http://www.LuLu.com/Net4TruthUSA - This book is a MUST READ for anyone who has been in Vietnam, or in any war. The chapter of poetry alone is worth the price of the book. If there was another "star" to add to the ratings, I'd give it SIX stars!

I purchased an autographed copy directly from the author, who was working a street vendor stand near 57th Street in NYC. When I went to get on the plane to go home (I live in Virginia), I was so engrossed in it, that I almost missed the gate call for my flight. This guy has a style unlike any I've seen. He breaks down the subject into 19 chapters, and each chapter into smaller sub-subjects. His "Vet's Rap Sessions" alone is worth the price of the book, which is 506 pages - I could NOT put this book down. I fear I may have missed something, so I'm reading it AGAIN. If his other (dozen or so) books on his web site at [...]is anything like this, I'm in trouble.

I am a US Army infantryman serving my second tour in Iraq. My sister sent me this book, and after I started reading it, I found a lot of similarities between the author's experience in Vietnam and what we are going through here - they had Agent Orange; we have depleted uranium... they had VC that looked like civilians; we have towel-head suicide bombers... they had snakes in the jungle, and we have snakes in Washington, DC. All in all and cover to cover, if you had SIX stars, I'd give it seven. The chapter of poetry is just.... well.... AWESOME

I purchased this book when it first appeared a few months ago. As a Vietnam Veteran, I must say that David Todeschini is a master of reaching in and grabbing your heart by the strings of your intellect, and making you cry in joy and anguish at the same time. While he describes irresolvable moral dilemmas and tragic situations like the bombing of a schoolhouse in Cambodia, and a little child he and a buddy tried to rescue dying in his arms, he offsets it with bright rays of sunshine of a little girl living in their barracks for several days and being "spoiled" by the GIs; like two boys fishing in an open sewer they took to the PX and treated to store-bought meals. To top it off, he includes a heart-wrenching chapter of truly talented original poetry - especially "Reflections" [...] I was so enamoured of this author [...] and ordered half a dozen autographed copies of his book. He told me he is thinking about raising funds for Southeast Asian children by autographing 5,000 books IN BLOOD, and selling them for $1,000 each. Land of Childhood's Fears is truly a remarkable book. Mainstream publishers would NEVER have printed EXACTLY what he wrote, and so he told me he self-published, because he didn't want ANY editing at all. All I can say is "Bravo"! I am going to purchase several other titles he authored on his bookstore web site, and there is FREE CONTENT on his site - particularly the "Net Sermons". Truly an AWESOME WRITER - You've got SIX stars as far as I'm concerned!