Better Understanding a Time & Place of the Past

"Tom wondered if you knew Nathaniel Tripp. Tom recently read Nathaniel Tripp's book, FatherSoldierSon: Memoir of a Platoon Leader in Vietnam. I can't remember when a book has had such an impact on Tom.

"As you probably remember, Tom was a Platoon Leader in Vietnam. He still has nightmares about the experience. I think one of the reasons is that when he returned from Vietnam, some people treated him as if he were the enemy. This was particularly difficult because Tom remembered his father talking about how, when he had returned from WWII, he had been treated like a hero. Sometimes Tom would go for months without nightmares, but then something would happen and they would return. When Tom Jr. brought home pictures of Vietnam War protesters and draft dodgers and asked his dad if that was what he did during the war, Tom had problems for months."

"When Fred suggested Tom read FatherSoldierSon, Tom said he didn't want to read about Vietnam, he just wanted to forget it. Then one rainy Sunday when we were all sitting around the house reading, Tom picked up FatherSoldierSon and read the section called 'The Dream.' He was hooked. That week Tom finished the book and started talking about Vietnam."

"Tom talked about the book so much I wanted to read it." I am glad I did. I now better understand Tom's Vietnam experiences. I did not realize how Vietnam would be so beautiful with 'a rolling landscape of hills which could have been Vermont except for the rice paddies in the valleys and the melodic voices of Vietnamese villagers drifting like smoke into the air,' and yet so ugly with 'blood, big, unsurvivable coagulated pools of blood, and thinner drag marks smeared with blood.' I only associated the sound of guns and screams of pain with Vietnam and not sounds like 'the sweet trilling and peeping and twanging' of 'jungle bugs and frogs and lizards' which the author described as 'the most beautiful music I had every heard.'"

"Now that Tom has read FatherSoldierSon he is talking about his experiences in Vietnam. I think talking is helping him deal with the ghosts of Vietnam. I also know that Tom appreciates more his role as a father. Nathaniel Tripp, whose father served in WWII and who has a son of his own, discusses, as the title suggests, the roles of father and son."

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