Letters from Vietnam

In this second collection of letters from Vietnam, Adler presents more candid accounts by soldiers and support personnel of their wartime experiences: soldiers reflect on their brushes with the Viet Cong, and nurses chronicle the daily effort to cope with war's physical and psychological tolls. Helicopter pilot James Michener muses to his parents:""How odd and unpredictable are individual men's destinies. One dies. One lives. A third observes each and writes about both."" Chief Warrant Officer Anthony De Angelis recounts to his wife a recent firefight and asks her to forgive him for losing the St. Christopher charm she had given him, while career army officer James Lincoln describes slogging through rice paddies yoked with a new M-60 with the Vietnamese company he advises. USAID worker Brenda Rodgers describes her Saigon nuptials to Major Hal Rodgers in a mock wedding announcement to her family, and five Red Cross women recount their daily routine in a too brief, stream of consciousness laundry list, which ranges from the mundane activities of rolling their hair and unpacking medical supplies to the sobering meditation of""walking past our bunker and hoping we'd never have to use it."" South Vietnamese civilians and allies also appear in the letters, praised by their American colleagues for their persistence and endurance during the decade-long conflict. Major Nguyen-Tien-Sung writes to the mother of his American counterpart extolling her son's efforts to help an orphaned Vietnamese boy. He thanks her for her vicarious help in the struggle, and adds""Please pray God to shorten this war, Madam."" This intimate peek at a controversial conflict is an insightful read for anyone interested in the collective memory of American intervention in Vietnam.