Tangerine Sky is superbly written, gutsy and gripping as it follows the emotional destruction of a Vietnam veteran and his family. Clearly, Barbara Fleenor Turner wrote this novel from painful first-hand experience. It's not fun, but it's a rare jewel, and I recommend it with enthusiasm.

BACK IN THE DISTANT HAZY PAST I WENT TO VIETNAM AND THE THINGS THAT I WITNESSED AND LIVED THERE CHANGED MY LIFE FOREVER. TANGERINE SKY BROUGHT IT BACK INTO FOCUS IN A POSITIVE WAY. IT AMAZES ME THAT A LADY WRITER HAS THE PERCEPTION TO SO VIVIDLY PRESENT SO MANY SEGMENTS OF MY EXPERIENCES THERE.

EVERY VETERAN OF THE VIETNAM CONFLICT, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, WITH ANY SERVICE, WILL ENJOY THIS GREAT BOOK. IT WILL BE A BOOKSHELF KEEPER THAT WILL BE READ AGAIN AND AGAIN.

I had Dr. Kroll for this class at IU, and some of my journal entries are used in his book. This class had a tremendous effect on me, having grown up without any understanding of the Vietnam War. It was one of those classes that has had a lifetime effect on its students. For anyone interested in teaching about Vietnam, Dr. Kroll's approach is a great model

In this book, Dr. Kroll takes us inside his class on Vietnam War literature in order to show how a teacher can use the richness of the material to engage students and to help them develop crucial critical thinking skills. Dr. Kroll gives a useful overview to the structure of his class, whereby the literature and assignments form a meaningful progression that continually challenges students to respond, analyze, rethink, and write. The book includes a detailed list of readings and, most helpfully, models for assignments. What comes through most in this book, however, is Dr. Kroll's commitment to both the material and his students. He pays careful attention to their writing and their responses to material that can be very disturbing on a number of levels. When I was a graduate student at Indiana University, I was fortunate enough to work with Dr. Kroll when he taught this course there. This experience was easily the most significant one I have had in my teaching career; I have never witnessed a higher level of commitment on the part of a teacher nor a more favorable and affectionate response to a teacher from his students. If you are at all interested in using Vietnam War writing in your classroom, you must read this book.

Tears in the Rain is one of those rare books, which, even though born out of the ashes and blood of the Vietnam War - actually made me laugh out loud. Whitaker's "real talk" captures the human, horrible, and humorous sides of hell, bringing the war ordeal down to the most personal level of feelings, friends, food, fraud, and phoenix-like transformation.

Whitaker's personal catharsis opens doors of healing and understanding for everyone directly or indirectly impacted by Vietnam. Forget the geopolitics. Soldiers are people - with some heroic moments packaged in a lot of human wrappings. In war, corruption, stupidity, and absurdity may be the only real victors.

Whitaker's easily digestible swallows of short stories are addictive. Each time I'd pick up the book pledging to only read a single episode, I found, like munching potato chips, it was impossible to limit my self to just one. Each account drew me into the next with the thought, "OK, just one more."

I highly recommend Tears in the Rain for anyone who wants to further understand the Vietnam War from the ground soldier up.

Mr. Whitaker does a wonderful job of sharing a series of frontline experiences from the Vietnam War. Sometimes funny (in a fairly dark way) always touching, I found Tears in the Rain to be a wonderful book and a way to view the war through the eyes of someone who was neither embittered nor gung ho about the experience.

Mr. Whitaker's style is fairly complex for a first-time author. I would compare it to a combination of the gonzo journalism of Thompson and the story telling of Conroy. Stylistically, I found it's format extremely unique and enjoyable for a war experience novel.

This book would be a wonderful read for anyone who is 1) a Vietnam War veteran who is looking for a way to see the war from a different perspective or 2) someone who did not experience the war, but is interested in seeing the war from an individual's frontline viewpoint.

This book had a profound effect on me in the way it illustrated how the "spiritual awakening" and prosperity of Canada during the 60's was paid for with the blood of America's children. I find it sickening how Canadians have distanced themselves from this war and condemned innocent veterans, most of whom were just out of highschool at the time...while at the same time praising the draft dodgers who headed north and assimilated into the Canadian population. These veterans need to be treated with the respect they deserve once and for all.

In his autobiography, "There It Is", Les Brown tells of his experiences as a Canadian born teenager, drafted into the US Army after returning to his parents home in California after a summer vacation in his native Quebec. You feel the helplessness he must have felt while trapped in the Kafkaesque draft system -one moment surfing the golden California beaches, the next on the front lines in South East Asia.

Lost in the green whirlwind that is the US Army, the young soldier quickly adapts to grunt life -finding brotherhood among those poor souls lost in the anarchy of a deteriorating war effort. As it becomes more and more clear that the American leadership has failed, Les becomes increasingly defiant. While in the most dangerous jungles he refuses to carry an M-16 and even goes AWOL for week surfing the beaches of Vietnam. A truly courageous Anti-War memoir, "There It Is" brings to the public consciousness the demons harbored by one man but belong to us all.

This book had a profound effect on me in the way it illustrated how the "spiritual awakening" and prosperity of Canada during the 60's was paid for with the blood of America's children. I find it sickening how Canadians have distanced themselves from this war and condemned innocent veterans, most of whom were just out of highschool at the time, as "baby-killers" while at the same time praising the draft dodgers who headed north and assimilated into the Canadian population. These veterans need to be treated with the respect they deserve once and for all.

In his autobigraphy, "There It Is", Les Brown tells of his experiences as a Canadian born teenager, drafted into the US Army after returning to his parents home in California after a summer vacation in his native Quebec. You feel the helplessness he must have felt while trapped in the Kafkaesque draft system -one moment surfing the golden Calfornia beaches, the next on the front lines in South East Asia.

Lost in the green wirlwind that is the US Army, the young soldier quickly adapts to grunt life -finding brotherhood among those poor souls lost in the anarchy of a deteriorating war effort. As it becomes more and more clear that the American leadership has failed, Les becomes increasingly defiant. While in the most dangerous jungles he refuses to carry an M-16 and even goes AWOL for week surfing the beaches of Vietnam. A truly courageous Anti-War memoir, "There It Is" brings to the public consciousness the demons harboured by one man but belong to us all.

As just another digger I found this book to be most worthy.
Having been through the training regimes as recommended by Ted Serong in Australia and having the understanding of the type of war we were involved in I could never understand the manner in which the Americans fought the war.
After reading this book I now understand it to have been a distrust of non American ideas and arrogance of the"we know better" type and impatience, thinking always that bigger is better rather than looking at quality.

The Vietnam War, and especially the reasons for its loss, from both military and political standpoints, will continue to be a matter of importance for those who are concerned with the survival of democracies.

Much has been written on political considerations, but military questions have been more neglected. Hence this book, which examines the role of Brigadier Ted Serong in the conflict, will be of great interest to a variety of readers.

Anne Blair is a research associate with the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University. Her interest in Serong is well-based. He had a central role in the development of military strategy and tactics, although to a large extent his views conflicted with those ultimately applied by the United States in Vietnam.

Early during his time in Vietnam, Serong concluded that the American forces were not properly directed, and that the South Vietnamese Army also should have directed its efforts in different ways.

He was involved in the development of the Police Field Force (PFF), with the aim of destroying the structures of the Vietnamese Communists in rural and mountain areas, and also the networks by which guerrillas obtained weapons, food, information and recruits.

Serong's concept (which is particularly persuasive in retrospect) was that the PFF would clear areas of Viet Cong influence, thus freeing the South Vietnamese Army (the AVRN) for combat against the North Vietnamese regiments that were operating in the border areas.

Unfortunately the United States forces showed a lack of patience, and were not prepared to support adequately the gradual advance of the program.

The PFF was absorbed by other US mission programs in 1966-67, but Serong himself remained invaluable and was consulted constantly by government advisers and by military commanders at the highest level.

At all times, his perceptions of the strategic position were sound. For example, he was one of the first to appreciate that the 1968 Tet Offensive constituted, contrary to media reports, a militarily disastrous loss by the Communists.

This book is very valuable. It is well researched. The author had the advantage of numerous conversations with Serong, and her account is expressed carefully, with much detail and appropriate references.

It is impossible to read it without concluding that Serong is a great Australian, and a great man in any context, a figure of enormous importance whose advice, had it been followed properly, would probably have led to a different result in Vietnam.

It is therefore a book which, in addition to its general readership, should be studied closely by military strategists and tacticians, and by the various academics, think-tanks and institutes which are so influential in the application of political and military policy.

- I.C.F. Spry, News Weekly book review, Melbourne, Australia

Having already had a copy of Olga Gruhzit-Hoyt's book about the women who served during World War II, I was anxious to read her latest book A Time Remembered: American Women in the Vietnam War (Presidio Press, ISBN 0891416692, 272 pages). What made it even more interesting for me was that I knew some of the women mentioned in her new book. Knowing how hard of a time I have had getting some women Veterans to open up, I was interested to see how the author collected her information and put it together. I quickly realized that she laid out her book by branches of the military and then the civilians who also served. She started quickly by stating, "Estimates of the number of women who served in Vietnam vary, ranging from 7,500 to 11,000 military women, with the greatest number being nurses. Add to this arbitrary figure the hundreds and hundreds of women sponsored by civilian organizations, and the figure could be near thirty thousand." As I opened the front cover I soon realized that I have already met or been in touch with some of the women the author interviewed. That helped to make this book even more interesting to me. Each chapter was about another woman and what she did during the Vietnam War. Each was powerful in its own right. The first eleven chapters were about the women who served as nurses in Vietnam. The author had five members of the Army Nurse Corps (ANC), two who were in the Navy Nurse Corps (NNC) and four women from the Air Force Nurse Corps (AFNC).

Naturally having served in the Army myself I was more familiar with the terminology used by the five women who were in the ANC as well as the three women who were in the Women's Army Corps (WAC). The nurses had been with the 36th Evacuation (EVAC) Hospital, 67th EVAC, 91st EVAC, and 24th EVAC. They were in Vung Tau, Qui Nhon, Tuy Hoa, and Long Binh respectively. The events they described were amazing. The WACs had been in Saigon and Long Binh. Other chapters included stories from civilians. Those women were in Vietnam with the Special Services, United Service Organization (USO), American Red Cross (ARC), and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Some of the chapters were actually written by the women themselves. Others were put together following interviews and emails between the author and the women. Regardless of how they were done-they showed the various aspects of how these women's lives were affected both in-country and since returning to The World. This book is a tribute to the women who volunteered to put themselves in harm's way. It should be required reading for students, as well as military members and families of those who have served. This book will help many others to understand that it is not just the male Veterans who suffer from various maladies of war. Our women's history is very important and sadly there is not enough books written about what our women have done to serve our country. I was glad to see this one on the book shelf at my local bookstore.

This book deplicts women of the Vietnam War. It has stories written by the women who were actually there, telling what they experienced. It tells about the bomb raids, soliers, and everything they've seen and what they will never forget. I recomend this book to everyone, especially if you are interested in women's roles in history, or the Vietnam War in general.

Al Santoli's book, To Bear Any Burden, is a narrative of stories told by 47 Americans, Vietnamese (both North and South), and Cambodians regarding their experiences before the US involvement, during the US war, and the war's aftermath (after the departure of US troops). Each tale (from two to 10 pages in length) is riveting in itself. The book moves in relative chronilogical order beginning in 1954 and concludes with the present (circa 1985). Each tale is successfully interwoven with the next story such that there is a cohesiveness and a logical flow to the story telling timeline.

Some of the stories are quite stunning: from the description of US soldiers being called baby-killers and spat on after they returned to the US [difficult to comprehend in this patriotic post 9/11 world] to the horror stories of the Communist regimes in Cambodia and in North/South Vietnam after the fall of Saigon [after reading theses stories, one should question why the US would want to establish ties to Vietnam].

This "straight from the hip" narrative is recommended to anyone wishing to learn more about the scenes from a participant's point of view.

I first read To Bear Any Burden when it was originally released in 1985. This has been a 'must-read' classic of American involvement in Southeast Asia since it was published. For it, Santoli interviewed, in depth, 47 individuals representative of that involvement from 1945 into the 1980s--Americans, Viet-Namese (communists and anti-communists), Cambodians and Laotians. The book is so artfully compiled as to flow like a single narration; yet the 'cast of characters' are separate in time, space, culture and social rank--an entire spectrum from ambassadors to villagers, soldiers to politicians, in one volume. No ones education about the Viet-Nam War is complete unless they've read this book.

J.T. Fitzgerald Is a great author! I loved his first book too! This book was a bit more like a mystery/action book. I like to picture the story happening in my mind and with the way J.T.Fitzgerald writes that's easy because hes adds all the good detail! I'm looking forward to another CIA/Military war book he comes out with. If yu enjoy a nice action/mystery book this one is great!

For the generations that did not exist during the Vietnam era, this book weeds out the rumors and tells the true story of what this war was really like. I could not put it down, I read it in one night. I did not think that J.T. Fitzgerald could ever top his first book Operation Stagecoach Red but I was delightfully surprised! Traitor in White Laces is the perfect sequel and a thrilling ride!

This book was one of the better books I read dealing with the VC tunnels. Undoubtedly, this information was either not taken seriously, or was overlooked, else things may have been different over there. It is marvelously written and I believe to be as historically accurate as possible, seeing as how I have interviewed a few members of the armed forced who were there from time to time. You actually feel as if you are there in the tunnels with them, and that's what makes this such a fine book!!

That pretty well sums it up......page after page of intense excitement.READ THIS ONE!!!

This book is, to say the least, well-written. It is concise, detailed, written with the same degree of passion for history that characterizes all of Hunt's work. I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in the response to the Vietnam War and its impact upon American society.

This remarkable account takes the American people inside the framework of one of the most spiritual and politically cutting-edge organizations founded within American boundaries during the entire Cold War, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). "The Turning" by Andrew E. Hunt is a must-read for all serious students of the Vietnam War contemplating its profound effect on both American culture and the very veterans who were ordered to "pay any price and bear any burden" for the mistaken political and military policies of their nation's involvement in the Southeast Asian conflict. The book's account of the various veterans--from Bobby Muller, John Kerry, Barry Romo, Bill Ehrhart, just to name a few-- who so courageously faced down the entire nation by witnessing in repeated public demonstrations what was REALLY GOING ON in the war, is a stunning reminder to all Americans and the World that for democracy to last, it must have a strong, clear, core collective conscience. No other organization so poignantly and forcefully challenged U.S. policy in Indochina as did the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Even today, all history texts pertaining to this period touch the subject of VVAW's presence as the cutting edge of the American anti-war movement, and indeed, of our national conscience at the time. It is not surprising to me that the veterans of VVAW, such as Mr. Bobby (USMC lst Lt. 1968-69), also launched the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) in 1979, which fought for the rights of the veterans of that conflict against an embarrassingly silent American government. Mr. Muller went on in his life to also found the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF) in 1980 which dealt with the issues of war and its consequences. This remarkable veteran organized the first visit of VVA vets back to Hanoi during Christmas in 1981 and, in doing so, launched the entire process of reconciliation between veterans' groups and the governments of both America and Vietnam which culminated in the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two nations in July of 1995. While following this most courageous path of peace, VVAF--under Mr. Muller's leadership-- initiated rehabilitation and humanitarian clinics in both Vietnam and Cambodia in the early 90's, assisting the thousands of forgotten, innocent landmine victims suffering throughout Indochina. This effort lead to Mr. Muller's conception of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) in 1991 which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 and became a legally-binding international treaty in March of 1999. The core qualities of seeking justice and witnessing truth inherent in VVAW's spiritual influence on the veterans who belonged to it in the 60's, 70's and up to the present, can be evidenced today in the continued remarkable achievements of those vets like Mr. Bobby Muller. By understanding the organization VVAW--its orgins and evolution-- the reader will learn to appreciate how men,-- under heavy fire of both war and protest of war--, have carried within their souls the spark to enlighten and change the world and humanity for the better. Anyone with a conscience should read this book and be challenged by the information it contains. Thank you, Mr. Hunt, for taking the time to compile this vital history of a unique organization which helped the conscience of this nation turn towards sorely-needed enlightment.