Dear America; Letters Home from Vietnam

New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1985. Second printing [stated]. Hardcover. 316, [4] pages. Endpaper map. Illustrations. Glossary. Index. DJ has some wars, soiling, edge tears/chips. This was prepared for The New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commission. The Editor was the Director of veterans' affairs for the City of New York. He was the curator of art exhibits showing works by Vietnam veteran artists. He was also associate producer of film Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam. Commemorating the dedication of a memorial to Vietnam veterans in New York City, Bernard Edelman's Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam is a collection of correspondences from U.S. servicemen during the Vietnam war. The book begins with the testimony of soldiers fresh to the war, documents the terrors of combat, of loneliness and loss, and closes with soldiers' questions about America's place in this tragic foreign war. "The poignant letters collected here demonstrate that writers in America were not the only ones fighting a moral and emotional battle in the 1960s," wrote Los Angeles Times Book Review critic Alex Raksin. "They offer a picture of both confusion and bravery," noted the Washington Post Book World, "confused feelings about what the war is all about, bravery in the face of certain danger." And finding "the book's strength . . . in its diversity," Myra MacPherson commented in a Washington Post, "this book tells of an ache as ancient as time—adolescents off to war with high expectations, who soon change greatly. Ambiguities abound—from pain, disillusionment, and sorrow for dead comrades to hard-earned measure of individual strength and survival." Dear America allows us to witness the war firsthand through the eyes of the men and women who served in Vietnam. In this collection of more than 200 letters, they share their first impressions of the rigors of life in the bush, their longing for home and family, their emotions over the conduct of the war, and their ache at the loss of a friend in battle. Poignant in their rare honesty, the letters from Vietnam are "riveting,... extraordinary by [their] very ordinariness... for the most part, neither deep nor philosophical, only very, very human" (Los Angeles Times). Revealing the complex emotions and daily realities of fighting in the war, these close accounts offer a powerful, uniquely personal portrait of the many faces of Vietnam's veterans. Condition: Very good / Good.

Keywords: Vietnam War, Casualties, Frederick Downs, Boot Camp, Vietnam Veterans, Evacuation, Military Hospitals, War Wounded, Killed in Action

ISBN: 0393019985

[Book #38287]

Price: $37.50

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