Customer Reviews

Leaving the Alamo, Texas Stories After Vietnam

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I read Dick Stanley's collection of après Viet Nam stories in a day. Each story was meaningful to me, each touched me in different ways. Some, I need to read again in order to puzzle the sequences out better - the dialogs and flashbacks confused me, in some cases, probably because I was reading way too fast.

One thing struck me repeatedly while reading, though it has occurred to me many times. How different Nam appeared to everyone who was there. It even occurred to me while I was there, sometimes, looking down from high ground, or a chopper, at that beautiful, beautiful, country. When the chopper landed, or when you hump down off the hill and get down in the mud, sand, or jungle, you get a completely different perspective.

Dick was an officer. That makes a hell of a lot of difference. He probably doesn't think that it does, but that is from his perspective. And we view things from our own perspective, we have no choice. Dick worked closely with the Vietnamese, I think he was mainly associated with the PFs (Popular Forces), more than the ARVNs (Army of the Republic of Viet Nam). He got to know those Vietnamese, lived with them, ate their food, etc. I was in the same area at roughly the same time. I did not get to know any Vietnamese. I did not eat any of their food. I did not live with them. I had a different job. I had no sympathy for them then, I have none now.

Do these stories touch you? Hell, yes. But is that a good thing? They reinforce and recall things that I recall more than enough, anyhow. And I can't help but wonder, does anybody other than us old, wore-out, beer-gutted, vets really give a damn about Nam any more? Did anyone ever? I doubt it. If you want to know how it feels to have gone and come home - give it a go. Just keep in mind that all veterans don't feel the same way about the people and the country and the war.

David Stanley's well-written book of short stories, "Leaving the Alamo", mingle the thoughts and memories of Vietnam War veterans with their Texas homeland. The main characters of each story deal thoughtfully with their war memories, their comrads in arms, either living,missing in action,killed in the war or dying afterwards, and their own adjustments to life afterwards in a poignant way that will penetrate to the reader's soul. Mr. Stanley recounts so very well, often with humor and always with great dialogue, the experience of those who went to fight and now are old, aching, full of recollections, resentful sometimes of how they and their fellow soldiers were treated. A good solid addition to libraries' books on the Vietnam War and a must own, must read for followers of this tragic period in our history.

This collection of poignant and beautifully written stories centers around the theme of Vietnam vets living with their war memories in modern day Texas. Each main character is changed in some way by having served in Vietnam and each, now in middle age, deals in a different way with the memories. Some of them struggle with the guilt of having survived, while buddies who served with them died in battle. Others have never quite managed to have the lives they thought they wanted.

The well-done characterizations and the vivid dialogue brought the stories to life and made them seem real. I enjoyed reading about not only the variety of characters and experiences while they served in Vietnam, but the very different lives they returned to in Texas. These stories make you remember the times when so many of our friends and family members went to an unpopular war and returned from the horrors of the battlefield to a nation that didn't seem to care. And then they make you think about what happened next.

Mr. Stanley has done a fine job with Leaving the Alamo. Highly recommended.

Vietnam haunts Americans of a certain age. It does not matter where in Southeast Asia they served over those years in the 1960s, or in what capacity - they returned to a life as normal as they could make it afterwards, still haunted by the accidental death of a child, the unmatched loveliness of an island in the Dragon Sea, the sudden and inexplicable death of a fellow soldier, the feel of flying low-altitude in a helicopter, the ghosts of the Alamo, and the beauty of an unapproachable woman.

Vietnam was a place at once beautiful - heartrendingly beautiful. But underneath that beauty . . . there was the black ugliness of war, betrayal, sudden and irrational death, the loss of friends and the loss of illusion, and memories which would never entirely fade, as Dick Stanley makes clear in this anthology of short stories. This version of the Vietnam experience seen through the prism of memories of Texas veterans is rather like one of those multi-sided dice . . . each memory different, depending on how the dice is thrown, and what each narrator experienced, then and after. The tone of the writing is quiet, meditative, and deeply sympathetic, and the descriptions - especially in the final story "The Dragon Sea" - are sublimely beautiful.

What do you say about a collection of short stories in which every character is a reflection of some aspect of the Vietnam War or its place in the nation's psyche? You say great stuff, if it's Richard Stanley's Leaving the Alamo. Written in spare straightforward prose, these sixteen stories are all well told as they look backward and forward from a place that is always Texas. Some, like "Gun Dreams" deserve to be read by anyone with an interest in a given word or the idea of honor. Others, like the closing story, "Dragon Sea," should be anthologized.

It took me a while to read all 16 stories in this collection. There was no need to rush through, after all, and many are intense, and worthy of reflection. In my case, I've been content to put the unpleasantness of the Vietnam era behind me, and several of these beautifully written stories brought it back so vividly that apportioning them out over time seemed a good idea for me.

They deal in general with present-day Texan veterans whose lives have been marked forever by their wartime experiences. The styles and concepts vary. The title story involves a Vietnam veteran and a ghost from the Alamo. Others experiment with point of view. A few are conventional in narrative design. All explore, however, the long-term effects of war on the human psyche.

I can't imagine that many of today's soldiers would be eager to reflect on the experiences of their elders, but perhaps they should. Wars will always be with us, it seems, and contemplating the perspectives offered by those who have gone before can only be healthy, both for a democracy and for those who pay such a high price to support it.

This book is definitely not for seekers of Rambo-type adventures, neither is it for the hysterical anti-war crowd. It is about different soldiers and their personal war and their personal aftermath of that war.

I have to agree with the other reviewer: it is hard to believe that it's Mr. Stanley's first book, so good it is.

Not being a critic, I'll be short: I learned from it. It is wholesome and, like your best rye bread, true. Like a good slice of rye bread it doesn't try to deceive you. I assure you that it will be a good investment of your hard-earned money.

I really enjoyed this book. The characters were real and believable; a couple of them seemed very familiar to me. I'm very impressed with the author's knowledge of the history of Texas and the way he tied that in to his stories of Texans and their Vietnam experiences.
Hard to believe it's his first effort at writing a book.

Claude Cooper

I simply couldn't breeze thru it - one or two stories and I was full. The images stayed with me - haunting, arresting - and continued to percolate over time, some unforgettable, like the description of Johnny's grave in The Long Fall, probably my single favorite.
Your familiarity with the colorful 'Texian' culture and linguistic eccentricities contributed to the authenticy and richness of the prose.
In all, an admirable blending of two cultures and a book which should find favor, particularly among those vested in the literature of that unique region.

"Leaving the Alamo" I cannot recommend this book. This is a work of fiction. If the author did not claim to be a Viet Nam veteran I would have never believed he was in the Military. His concepts of FT Benning do not match any of my experience there. The stories are full of misinformation and falsehoods. As if the author has no knowledge of the subject he is writing about. Many of the scenarios are copies of some of the typical stereotype stories from the media and people like John Kerry. These stories try to make Viet Nam combat veterans out as blood thirsty ruthless killers & collectors of body parts while at the same time being victims of the Nixon regime. These are the kind of stories fake RVN vets tell. Yes there are more fake RVN veterans than real ones according to the US Census. Perhaps you should read this book just so you can recognize a phony war story when you hear one?
I was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge for actions in Phu Yen Province, RVN in November 1966; I have 5 Hershey Bars from RVN so I think that gives me license to criticize this author, Eh? I have since also, spent many early Sunday mornings walking around in the Alamo.