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The Vietnam Reader

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In "The Vietnam Reader", Walter Capps gathers 36 essays written by a diverse group of writers ranging from theologians to Vietnam veterans on both sides of the war. The writings reveal just some of the complex issues created by the Vietnam War. The essays are at times provocative, revealing, but always engaging. "The Vietnam Reader" offers an exceptional viewpoint on the scars left on both American soldiers and American society by the Vietnam War - scars that have yet to completely heal.

The book is an attempt at healing and dealing with the divisions created by the war. In a sense, it is an attempt to come to terms with the war's effects. Some writings deal with the mistrust of the Vietnam veterans towards their government and politicians during and after the war. Essays cover a time when suspicions and anger hovered over American society. Doubts over America's ultimate goal(s) in Vietnam, the bitterness of many Americans towards draft-dodgers and war protesters, deferments of the educated, and the maltreatment of soldiers returning from an unpopular war are covered in several of the narratives.

The essays are sincere and touching; some also tap on the anger and frustrations of the veterans. James Fallows writes about his deferment from the Vietnam War: "To answer the call [of duty] was unthinkable, not only because, in my heart, I was desperately afraid of being killed, but also because [it was an] "immoral war effort". Fallows adds that his deferment from the war was "the beginning of the shame which remains with [him] to this day". At the other end of the spectrum, William Broyles writes about the "love of war," where he describes it as seductive. "War is beautiful. There is something about a firefight at night, something about the mechanical elegance of an M-60 machine gun". James Quay wrote "that trust between the American government and its people was one of the earliest casualties of the Vietnam War". A nurse that served in Vietnam, Rose Sandecki, wrote on behalf of women who served in the war, that everyone should "understand [that] that war really did a number on all of us, the women, as well as the men".

Other essays describe the turmoil veterans endured upon their return to America, the verbal abuse from their "fellow Americans", their government's lack of interest, the debilitating emotional, mental, spiritual, and/or physical wounds that never quite healed. One essay declared that the Vietnam veteran had in essence become the forgotten soldier. They received no ticker tape parade welcoming them home from a war they were asked to fight - there was no heroes' welcome for the Vietnam veterans.

All 36 essays are noble and worthy of their inclusion in this anthology. I was drawn closer to the compelling essays written by the veterans on both sides of the war, for only they know and can share their stories of pain and anger; their anguish, lessons learned, and healing. How some of them found peace in their visit to the Vietnam Memorial, in Washington, while others traveled over eight thousand miles back to Vietnam in order to find peace and/or to reconcile themselves to a war that ultimately made no sense. During Williams Boyles visit to Vietnam, as a civilian, a former Viet Cong General, Nguyen Minh Ky pointed out to Boyles that "[it] is easier to start a war . . . than to end one".

"The Vietnam Reader" is a book of great significance and should be required reading for those who wish to understand the Vietnam War and its effects on soldiers, citizens and society as a whole. It should be studied by those government officials who choose war over peace and then send their citizens into the fray. . . .