Memory review #1
This review just in
March 24, 2009
More Than a Memory:
Reflections of Viet Nam
Edited by Victor R. Volkman
Modern History Press
(2009)
ISBN: 9781932690651
"More Than a Memory: Reflections of Viet
Nam" is a stunning anthology of writings by veterans that includes first-person
non-fiction narratives of serving in Vietnam, fictional stories about the war,
poetry, tales of adjusting to civilian life after the war, and many memories of
the war and how it continues to affect veterans' lives today. The diversity of
"More Than a Memory" provides a more thorough understanding of the war
experience than any one soldier's story could provide. Twelve authors have
contributed forty-five different pieces of Vietnam war literature that leave a
reader both stunned, grieving for the veterans' experiences, and better educated
about what war does to an individual and a nation.
It is impossible to
discuss the merits of all the works included in this anthology. Many of the
stories are what the reader might expectdepictions of veterans experiencing
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder upon their return home, veterans trying to
understand what it meant to have to kill other people, soldiers coping with the
loss of comrades in battle, and soldiers returning home to a nation that failed
to treat them with respect. In addition are many unexpected themes that add to a
fuller understanding of the Vietnam War and how war haunts a person for the rest
of his life. If the book is lacking in any way, it is the absence of women
explaining how the war also haunted "her" life as a soldier or soldier's wife,
but that is a small complaint compared to the multiple voices in this
volume.
The various poems and stories, both fiction and non-fiction, can
be divided up between those that take place during the war itself, and those
that are reflections back upon the war. Many dramatic scenes depict the
experiences of the war and trying to cope with immediate and dangerous events as
they happen. Tom Skiens' story "Boat People" stands out for explaining how the
war psychologically affected soldiers while they were in the midst of combat.
Frightened constantly of being killed themselves, and never knowing who might be
the enemy, soldiers often found themselves killing innocent
people:
Killing because we are tired of others killing those around us.
This was a revenge killing. Not that these two people in the boat had done
anything to us personally, but simply because we needed to kill someone to help
us feel like we could even the score. Killing to gain a sense of control over
our lives. (p. 192)
Other stories describe the heartache of daily life
in the war. In an excerpt from his book, "My Tour in Hell," David Powell tells
how he did not want to make friends with his fellow soldiers because he feared
if he became attached to someone, he would become weak and risk his own life for
another, or become distracted by his own grief and thus get himself killed.
Nevertheless, he becomes friends with a soldier, who consequently gets killed,
and David finds himself writing home to console his friend's
mother.
Other soldiers struggle with moral issues and how war forces
them to act against their better natures. In "Witness to Rape" Tom Skiens writes
about a soldier struggling to accept his fellow soldiers raping a Vietnamese
woman; he wishes he could turn his gun on the soldiers to stop them, but he
knows he will be court-martialed if he does. Years later, he still tries to
justify his decision to stand by while the rape occurred.
The majority
of the stories and poems reflect the book's title theme of memories. Many of the
stories depict soldiers trying to function in civilian life while still haunted
by the war. In "My Blue Block of Wood," Richard Boes depicts a soldier's first
day home and how he immediately makes his family afraid of him, making him
realize, "I'd brought the trauma home. I'm the fuckin' enemy here" (p.
21).
After years and decades of being home, the memories and trauma do
not lessen for veterans. The return to the scenes of the war is another constant
theme as Vietnam veterans try to make peace with their experiences. In Marc
Levy's "Torque in Angkor Wat," a veteran returns to Cambodia with a friend who
had not been in the war. The veteran becomes delusional, seeing Cambodian troops
aiming at him when they are actually Cambodians playing Frisbee with him and his
friend.
Other stories and essays explain how veterans struggle to deal
with people who cannot understand their experiences. One of the more humorous
yet pointed of these pieces is Alan Farrell's "Nothing So Bad It's Not Poetry"
where the author talks about how poetry is a form of release for Vietnam
veterans, but also how academics fail to understand war poetry despite their
literary theories. During a poetry reading, one professor tries to pronounce the
city "Quang Ngai." A veteran helps him, and then when the professor cannot
pronounce other cities' names, the veteran repeatedly tells him the same
pronunciation as for the first city without the professor catching on to how he
is revealing his own ignorance.
In "Kangaroo Court Martial," Shirley
Jolls and Walter Aponte reveal racism in the military by telling the story of
two soldiers who went to prison for six and ten years simply for protesting the
treatment of blacks in the United States during the race riots in
Detroit.
Don Bodey's stunning first chapter to his award-winning novel
"F.N.G." is included, in which a Vietnam veteran considers shooting his grandson
to disable him so he cannot leave to serve in Iraq.
Numerous more works
are included in "More Than a Memory: Reflections of Viet Nam." Most importantly,
these stories and poems all work together to express the diversity and
similarities of veteran experiences and how the Vietnam War remains with these
veterans. Readers will come to understand why Vietnam veterans cannot simply
"get over it." The final work in the anthology is titled "Whatever You Did in
War Will Always be With You." It begins with a telling dialogue from an
anonymous author.
VA Shrink: Were you in Vietnam?
Vietnam Vet:
Yes.
VA Shrink: When were you there?
Vietnam Vet: Last
night.
Vietnam Veterans cannot forget the war. Their experiences are not
just memories, but events they live with everyday and every night. We honor them
by reading their stories and never forgetting the sacrifices they made; many of
them sacrificed their lives by dying, many more sacrificed their lives by
surviving only to find it difficult to live again.
Tyler
R. Tichelaar, Ph.D., author of The Marquette Trilogy