From 1969 to 1974 Ehrhart was just Passing Time. His reentry into the "world" began with his enrollment as a 21-year-old freshman (and token Vietnam vet) at Swarthmore College. At first simply trying to bury his past, Ehrhart slowly if inexorably came to understand what happened to him, and why, in Vietnam. Interspersed are flash-backs to the war itself. It is the story of political--and personal--awakening. As the war dragged on, the United States' deceitful involvement and its perpetuation of fallacies and lies about the war's conduct forced Ehrhart to confront his own feelings about his government, country, and self. Throughout, the reader shares with Ehrhart his odyssey through naivete, growing awareness, angry withdrawal and, finally, a measure of peace.
"The 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry had the dubious distinction of being the unit that had fought the biggest battle of the war to date, and had suffered the worst casualties. We and the 1st Battalion." A Yale graduate who volunteered to serve his country, Larry Gwin was only twenty-three years old when he arrived in Vietnam in 1965. After a brief stint in the Delta, Gwin was reassigned to the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in An Khe. There, in the hotly contested Central Highlands, he served almost nine months as executive officer for Alpha Company, 2/7, fighting against crack NVA troops in some of the war's most horrific battles. The bloodiest conflict of all began November 12, 1965, after 2nd Battalion was flown into the Ia Drang Valley west of Pleiku. Acting as point, Alpha Company spearheaded the battalion's march to landing zone Albany for pickup, not knowing they were walking into the killing zone of an NVA ambush that would cost them 10 percent casualties. Gwin spares no one, including himself, in his gut-wrenching account of the agony of war. Through the stench of death and the acrid smell of napalm, he chronicles the Vietnam War in all its nightmarish horror.
Fearful Odds is a no holds barred narrative told in three parts. It is the true story of a young Army officer, groomed for command and assigned to lead a platoon on a reconnaissance mission in the A Shau Valley, Vietnam in 1968. An otherwise routine mission is complicated by the contradiction of an inept chain of command. The resulting casualties devastate the platoon and the graphic images and memories of the action and the grueling months that follow, lead Chuck Newhall to a lifetime of severe trauma, guilt, grief and anger. Returning home, Newhall embarks on an extraordinary entrepreneurial career bringing great wealth, prestige and security, despite severe episodes of depression and anxiety which would hobble others from achieving such levels of success. And yet a few years later, and seemingly without warning, the family that he had worked so hard to create and support is suddenly ripped apart by tragedy intensifying an emotional upheaval that revisits the pain and anguish he first felt during his time in Vietnam. After decades of experience in managing the long-term effects of trauma and with the support of his family, Chuck Newhall has successfully come to terms with his past and the effects of PTSD. Fearful Odds offers hope, inspiration and valuable coping tools for anyone, or their families, who has been affected by post-traumatic stress, depression, mild traumatic brain disorder or the suicide of a loved one. Fearful Odds is a story of perseverance in the face of insurmountable odds and will offer a guiding hand to others who are facing challenges on the battlefield, boardroom or back at home. "Chuck Newhall's compelling narrative account of combat action in Vietnam takes you to one of the darkest hellholes on earth -- the A Shau Valley in 1968. Just when you thought that the war was over, Fearful Odds packs a punch in the gut you will be feeling for a long time." Joseph L. Galloway, author of We Were Soldiers Once...and Young "If you care about America's warriors, and about how we as a society can help them come home after war, then you should read this book." Nathaniel Fick, author of One Bullet Away "The illuminating depictions of sessions with your phychiatrist Dr. Kaiser can be regarded as almost a manual for understanding PTSD and learning how to overcome it. However, unlike the majority of books on the subject, you explain how PTSD can be addressed via depictions of how your own efforts have succeeded to varying extents. Readers will learn far more from your book, which is "real life," than from others." Solomon H. Snyder, M.D. Distinguished Service Professor of Neuroscience, Pharmacology and Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins University
When Lieutenant Robert Wideman's plane crashed on a bombing run in the Vietnam War, he feared falling into enemy hands. Although he endured the kind of pain that makes people question humanity, physical torture was not his biggest problem. During six years as a prisoner of war, he saw the truth behind Jean-Paul Sartre's words: "Hell is other people." Unexpected Prisoner explores a POW's struggle with enemies and comrades, Vietnamese interrogators and American commanders, his lost dreams and ultimately himself.
In 1982, John Newman, curator of the Vietnam War Literature Collection at Colorado State University, said of W.D. Ehrhart: "As a poet and editor, Bill Ehrhart is clearly one of the major figures in Vietnam War literature." This autobiographical account of the war, the author's first extended prose work, demonstrates Ehrhart's abilities as a writer of prose as well. Vietnam-Perkasie is grim, comical, disturbing, and accurate. The presentation is novelistic--truly, a "page-turner"--but the events are all real, the atmosphere intensely evocative.
It's the year 1969. I was serving in the U.S. Army with my brothers of First Platoon Company A 3/1 11th Bde Americal (23rd Infantry) Division. We were average American sons, fathers, husbands, or brothers who'd enlisted or been drafted from all over the United States and who'd all come from different backgrounds. We came together and formed a brotherhood that will last through time. I share my experiences about weeks of boredom and minutes to hours of terror and surviving the heat, carrying a 60-pound rucksack, monsoons, a forest fire, a typhoon, building a firebase, fear, death and fighting the enemy while mentally, physically, and morally exhausted.
A Memoir: A innocent 18 year old leaves home to join the military during a time of war. He leaves because he can no longer live with the religious mandates imposed by his parents Mennonite faith. The Marine Corps boot camp and further training leave him filled with fear, uncertainty, and yet as a marine filled with pride. He serves 20 months in Vietnam during the height of the war (67-69) as a combat radio operator. Wounded twice, forced to witness a haunting murder, and living one day at a time he struggles to meet the date he can leave Vietnam. Finally he is sent to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, CA to become a Drill Instructor. After training seven platoons of raw recruit to face the hostile environment he left he is discharged after 4 years of a honorable decorated service. He marries, starts a family, earns his college degree while facing the hostile professors and student body in protest over the war he so valiantly fought. Years pass before he falls into a deep dark hole of depression. Obsessed with memories of Vietnam that won't leave him alone he see suicide as his only reprieve. Afraid of what he might do he finds help thru the local Veterans Hospital. No one but his wife understands the life he live and the medications required to keep him level. His family and friends see him as a happy, success former marine living life's dream. Little does anyone know the torment he's forced to live with everyday. When people ask him when he was in Vietnam, he responds by saying from November 1967 - July 1969. What he really wants to tell them is: 15 MINUTES AGO. CRAIG TSCHETTER, writes vividly about being raised by parents of strict Mennonite faith and his struggles to deal with their religious mandates. Enlisting in the Marine Corps to escape home he finds himself in the jungles of Vietnam for 20 months and then at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, CA as a Drill Instructor. Educated with a degree in Mortuary Science he spends the next 34 years are spent in the funeral service industry. Craig and his wife, Della, live in Brookings, SD and have two children. Their daughter and granddaughter reside in Florida and their son in Oregon.
From 1969 to 1974 Ehrhart was just passing time. His reentry into the "world" began with his enrollment as a 21-year-old freshman (and token Vietnam vet) at Swarthmore College. At first simply trying to bury his past, Ehrhart slowly came to understand what happened to him, and why, in Vietnam. Interspersed are flashbacks to the war itself. It is the story of political--and personal--awakening. As the war dragged on, the United States' deceitful involvement and its perpetuation of fallacies and lies about the war's conduct forced Ehrhart to confront his own feelings about his government, country and self. Throughout, the reader shares with Ehrhart his odyssey through naivete, growing awareness, angry withdrawal and, finally, a measure of peace.
