"Lighting Candles" captures well the flavor of a difficult yet rewarding time. One correction is in order: on page 106 it is noted that I was captured with Ed Baker by the NVA. Ed and George Christian, a superb doc who came later, were the ones captured. I had left by then.

John Taylor

Hilary Smith and the Montagnard Hospital in which she worked repaid a small part of the huge debt that we owe to our most loyal allies. Led by our Special Forces, the Montagnards contributed half of all gound combat intelligence (CMH Publication 90-23, Department of the Army.) The Montagnards saved thousands of American lives and returned many more thousands safely to their loved ones in the United States.

Whenever we visited her hospital, we were amazed by the intense energy of Pat Smith and her team, who dedicated a large part of their lives to the practice of medicine under extremely difficult conditions. We all felt a very deep affection for her despite the brusque "strictly business" manner enforced on her by the enormity of her humanitarian labors.

Her story of the village chief, and his quiet dignity despite his intense worries about the future of his people bring back many painful memories of the dignified and unselfish Montagnard leaders with whom my advisory team and I worked. They gave us so much. Without them my team and I might not have survived Vietnam.

The inspiring work of Hilary and Pat Smith helped to pay the enormous debt which we, as Americans, owe to our most loyal allies. She and Pat represent the very best of America. Hilary's book is a "must read" for those who seek an understanding of the human dynamics of our struggle in Vietnam, and its terrible cost.

Yes, I was. I know what you're thinking and you're way off the mark! I finished this book just last night. It brought back so many memories of Vietnam past and present. Having been with the author this past summer in Vietnam on a humanitarian project, I can vouch for the authenticity of her life and the very personal story she shares with the reader about that life. The book kept my interest quite well. I thought the early chapters and especially the later chapters were moving and personable. Nothing phony here. You will be come away from this book impressed with all she has accomplished in spite of incredible obstacles! If you ever wondered what life was like during the war for the average Vietnamese family, Phin's story will take you there. It will leave you with an appreciation for those that served as well as the South Vietnamese who had to endure the war on the home front. She wrote the book as she speaks today, so your reading experience will be genuine and personable. Quite a remarkable story about the resiliency and desire of a young woman who had to earn everything in her life and do so completely on her own! A triumph of the human spirit and a testimony to the greatness of the "American Dream!" Enjoy!!!

This book has a flow to it that is so beautiful. As I read it I could hear her accent. I could see
the buildings and the people. I could hear the sounds of the city and smell all the wonderful
smells.

The book is a wonderful story on several levels. First it is an inspirational story of a girl born
into circumstances more difficult than most of us could ever know. A dysfunctional family, a
national economy in shambles and a nation in the darkest days of a losing war. Still what ever is
placed in her way can not stop her. She not only survives, she flourishes. As each hardship is
thrown at her she rises to it, and above it, and with all that has happened there is not one word of
bitterness or self pity in this book.

On another level it is a love story, but not a warm and fuzzy one. It is a solid love that, like
our heroine, takes the pressures of life and, instead of being weakened, grows stronger.

And still on another level it tells of life as a bar girl in Saigon, during the war. This is an
important story since these girls were often dismissed as having no value. Now we find that, at
least this one, had values, hopes, dreams, strengths and a spirit that would take her from the
emptiness of the Saigon bars to a full and exciting life.

She once asked would her friends still be her friends when they had read the book. As I read it
I gained more respect and admiration for her with each chapter. I feel like I know her. I feel like
I have always known her.

This book is an essential companion to the author's first book, "Accidental Warrior". It addresses Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), one of the least understood psychological "illnesses" and legacies of the Vietnam War. In this book Andy O'Meara tells of his encounters with this disease and reconstructs the manner in which it took over his life. He weaves a gripping story consisting of remembrances of battlefield experiences, the shattering of illusions, betrayal of trust, homefront harassment, family dissolution, and finding therapy and recovery. This book helps strip away the psycho-babble, demeaning skepticism, and bureaucratic insenstivity normally associated with descriptions of PTSD. It also caused me to reread Accidental Warrior with new appreciation.

Why does one write a book? To whom does the author 'aim' the book? What is
the purpose, why expend the effort? To make a political, a religious, or
some other statement, or just to sell something, a product, to whomever is
willing to buy it?

Having reviewed numerous books written by friends, commentaries on the Art
of Leadership, Professional works, from Classmates, others, the reviewer has
seen a LOT of emotions expressed, running the gamut from humor,
frustration - from within NYPD, to outright pain and suffering, baring of
the soul, from Classmates, other friends, which leads to the initial
questions expressed in the preceding paragraph.

WHY DID THE AUTHOR DO THIS?

This is the second book published by Andy O'Meara, Jr. reflecting on his
Army career; this one details his Vietnam experiences. In his prior work -
"ACCIDENTAL WARRIOR", Andy basically delivers his autobiography, touching
briefly on some of the battles in Vietnam, and his bout with PTSD.

In this work, "ONLY THE DEAD . . ." , he describes in greater detail, and
goes into much greater depth, his experiences with PTSD and the treatment,
the pain, the soul searching, involved in coming to grips with this malady.

The title is a bit of an enigma, until one realizes that the servicemen who
returned alive to this country came home to an entirely different nation
than the one they had left, a nation polarized by lying, scheming
politicians, and a media that was anti-military to begin with, and furious
with the Johnson Administration for lying to them, so that truly, the only
service personnel who returned to the 'home' they had left, were the 'Dead'.

As the author phrases it, 'only the dead', who returned in caskets, were not
persecuted and/or demonized by the zealots of the anti-war movement, or at
least they never knew that they were being denounced and abandoned by those
they sacrificed for; served to protect from communism.

Thus, those who returned in coffins were 'home' in the sense that they were
beyond the pain and emotional suffering of their comrades who survived the
battles only to discover that they were hated and vilified by the enemies of
America, those enemies resident within her borders!

Many times the author contemplated taking his own life in a futile attempt
to end the vilification and persecution, but ultimately, in the end, refused
to carry out the sentence imposed by the New Left, on those who were
faithful to their country.

In the book he tells the story of soldiers who shared hospital wards with
him while he was recovering from wounds that almost cost him his leg,
soldiers who would call home seeking a modicum of emotional support, and
instead be berated by a loved one for fighting in the war, or for not
deserting while they had a chance; or situations where wounded veterans were
debarking from aircraft, some ambulatory, some on litters, who were spit
upon, reviled by the 'flower children', because they were 'baby killers'.

Although the author is still alive and well, still here, as with all the
other Vietnam Veterans, he feels that he has been changed forever. He writes
that it was a tough time to be a soldier, and they who served did not return
to the same land they left behind.

"Our comrades, our youth, our health, our sanity, our county vanished in the
years we lost at war."

In his two works to date, Andy O'Meara has come forth as an apologist for
the men and women in uniform who serve their nation, unheralded, often
reviled, and maltreated by politicians who failed to accept their
responsibility for the combat readiness of personnel and units, which were
allowed to atrophy, wither through neglect, through lack of funding, lack of
resources from DoD. What is particularly irksome to the reviewer are those
who opine from on high that military personnel are paid too much.

He writes to help Americans understand what happened back then - which seems
to be happening now, albeit to a lesser degree - where a certain segment of
society systematically attempts to make service personnel scapegoats for
doing what they do.

His is an attempt in book form to help the Vietnam veterans, indeed all
veterans, understand that what they did was honorable, despite charges by
the Left, by various and sundry 'celebrities', a select portion of the
'intelligentsia' that theirs was not an honorable cause.
It is a moving read; a needed first step toward restoring the dignity of the
men and women denied justice by the anti-war movement in America.

I don't know if I can say any more than what I wrote in the one-line summary. The book is very good. It is well-written.

It is one of the most comprehensive sources of information regarding the various people groups of Vietnam.

I recommend this book to anyone that has a heart for Vietnam, the Vietnamese, or the numerous people groups that reside in their country.

I guarantee that this is a side of Vietnam you've never seen. If you've ever been interested in the native peoples of the USA (or other cultures wherever you live) then this is a must-read.

This book is about the decision making surrounding the our fateful engagement in Vietnam. Berman adopts a highly analytical approach and dissects the events, players and political back-and-forth behind the scenes. He has access to a trove of recently de-classified documents and cogently builds the following points: 1) While hard analysis of our goals in Vietnam was present, (e.g. what do we do if we get the North Vietnamese to the barganing table? What do we do if limited escalation does not bring about a change from North Vietnam? What do we do if the political situation in South Vietnam does not stabilize?)major policy players chose to ignore this type of anlysis for gretaer and greater involvement. 2) The personality and deportment of LBJ made it much more difficult for dissenting views (other than George Ball's) to get a fair hearing. 3) Dissenters, such as there were, were generally lower level memebers of the state department and were on a drastically unequal footing with the Sect. of Defense and White House staffers in terms of prestige and authority. This made there points of view suspect and thus, disregarded.

This is somewhat of a technical book as it deals with the structure of decision making during a very tense and important period of our nations history. However, if one sees it as a description of our road to folly, it is a fascinating read.

Larry Berman's "Planning a Tragedy" covers the early critical years when America's Vietnam policy was being planned and executed. It serves as the first installment leading up to the period after Nixon took over as president in 1969 to the conclusion of our Southeast Asian military involvement, which Berman encompasses in his recently published, "No Peace, No Honor."

The book is a necessary primer on the "what might have been" aspects of a policy that, like a runaway freight train, developed a pattern and trail of its own, leaving Americans from policymakers on down groping for answers. One observes a Lyndon Johnson, a master of domestic politics and known for his ability to put together compromises to secure needed bread and butter objectives, caught dumbfounded, feeling helpless in an area concerning which he had no expertise. Johnson fell into the trap of rightist Republican thinking of the fifties, which saw Communism as an international monolith. Johnson became convinced that America's survival was at stake in a small Asian nation some ten thousand miles away. He embraced the domino theory, believing that Vietnam constituted a potentially critical loss that would propel thenceforth to an accelerating series of defeats for America.

At a time when Johnson needed valuable input from a State Department strategic hand who saw Vietnam from a balanced international perspective, George Ball, the one operative with a broad European portfolio, who advised the president not to get trapped in Vietnamese quicksand, was outranked by his boss, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, as well as hawkish Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. As a result, Ball, who had listened to French President Charles De Gaulle's warnings of the dangers of an extended Vietnam military involvement, saw his advice spurned as the Rusk-McNamara tandem prevailed.

Meanwhile speculation continues over what President Kennedy might have ultimately done had he lived. One thing was certain. Had Kennedy, like Johnson, decided to escalate American involvement, he would have made the decision basically on his own. Kennedy used Rusk more as an administrator since foreign policy was one of his major areas of interest, unlike the case with Johnson, who, from Berman's and other accounts, deferred heavily to Rusk and McNamara.

This book details the five-year ordeal of a former South Vietnamese officer through many reeducation camps in South Vietnam after the fall of Saigon.

It includes mind numbing details of beatings, starvation, hard work in the fields and pure harassment by the guards. The most interesting part is the description of how expertly the communists manipulated the prisoners' minds. The latter were tricked into believing they would be released earlier if they worked harder. And the "two week-reeducation" became a five year ordeal.

Those who would like to understand how the communist system works should read this book. The author is to be congratulated for bringing to us a detailed description of the communists' reeducation camps.

Prisoner Of The Word: A Memoir Of The Vietnamese Reeducation Camps is the chilling but accurate memoir of author Le Huu Tri's years as a prisoner of Vietnamese so-called "reeducation" camps, which were actually forced labor camps in which starvation, nonexistent medical care, and execution were all too common. Yet perhaps the most insidious facet of these camps was the authorities' ruthless control of information, rumors, and lies, which were manipulated to control not only the prisoners, but the general populace. Prisoner Of The Word not only describes a part of Vietnam's modern history; it is a cautionary tale of the dangers of "spin control" in any and every government of the world. Highly recommended reading.

I probably have quite a minority view on this book, even though I found it to be clearly worth reading. To me, the best part of this book is the first essay "The Real War", which, even though it's the title of the book, is presented as more of an introduction to the other two stories. This essay contains writing which is so good (even though I disagree with some of his left leaning political conclusions) it had me saying out loud 'this guy can really write'. It also had some very thought provoking material which any serious student of the Vietnam War should read and consider.

I also enjoyed his presentation of "The Military Half" and his experience flying with the Forward Air Controllers. It gave me an idea of just how these pilots worked with the air arsenal and the ground commanders to wreak havoc on the ground. However, I found this story and "The Village of Ben Suc" to be somewhat repetive in theme and content and maybe not organized as well as it could have been to make the author's points. As a result, the enthusiasm I had for reading this book and its first essay didn't survive to the end of the book. In other words, I relished reading the first essay and didn't have nearly as much enthusiasm by the time I finished the book.

The Real War: The Classic Reporting On The Vietnam War is a Jonathan Schell's outstanding commentaries on the American military operations in Vietnam and his post-war reflections a decade later. In the first part, "The Village of Ben Suc", Schell takes the reader in the action and terror that was the Vietnam war with his descriptions of the frustration and desperation of American soldiers caught up in the brutalities of bloody conflict. In the second part, "The Military Half", Schell describes the destruction of two entire provinces in South Vietnam by American bombing and ground operations, with first-hand accounts of these extensive operations and their horrific results. Rarely has a writer been so able and capable of recreating and conveying the sights, sounds, paranoia, and rage of modern frontline warfare.

A story that helps you to understand a little better what are men went throught, and how badly they were treated when they arrived home. It is A graphic read, and at times, very disturbing. this is a book that I would recommend, HIGHLY!

This book puts you on the ground in Vietnam, under fire, with an M-1 in your hand and Hueys hanging fire overhead. At times it is almost too intense and painful to read, yet its unyielding force gives you no choice but to slog on, as they did. There is no truer record of America's misbegotten war and its effects on those who fought it.

I thought this was a great book. It is a detailed report of what really happened over in Vietnam and who was doing it. This book really tells how it happened, when it happened, and why it happened. This is a must read for anyone even remotely interested in unconventioinal warfare.

"SEALs" is the book version of a historical master's thesis written by Tim Bosiljevac, a highly respected career SEAL officer (and former enlisted Army Ranger). His work is essentially a diary of SEAL operations in Vietnam. It moves chronologically through the arrival of UDTs in the early 60's to the departure of US forces in 1975. The book's matter of fact description of numerous operations, taken from SEAL Team logs, allows the reader to appreciate the complexity of the intelligence gathering systems employed by the SEALs to generate their own target lists. The detailed descriptions of equipment carried and the synopses of patrol orders allows will appeal to Soldiers interested in finding out how the "best of the best" prepared and executed missions in the Rung Sat. This book is highly recommended for current and former Special Operators.

Revisiting the crazy O'Malley clan he recently created, Father Greeley tells us the story of Chuck and his beloved Rosemaire and the events that they were part of in the last years of the seventies.

Chuck has been sent to Vatican city to witness and photograph the election of the new pope. He watches as politics shape the church, then is called to the White House where he meets President Carter and is witness to national crises. However, the national and worldwide events pale compared to the desolation that is in Chuck's heart. A thriving career and beautiful wife just are not enough to satisfy him. Divine intervention alone will restore his joy.

**** Lovingly told, this story will enchant readers familiar with the series, but new readers will most likely be a bit lost. However, new or old, you can not miss or fail to be charmed by Father Greeley's warm writing style that plays out events casually, but still has a profound message. Particularly engaging is the way he has divine figures show up in such a friendly manner.

Happily married to his beloved Rosemarie and father to five adult children and three grandchildren that he adores and loves Charles "Chucky" Cronin still worries about the future. He remains a faithful Catholic, but wonders if perhaps the church abandoned its flock. He contemplates whether he is just suffering from a biological occurrence for someone turning fifty or a reaction to continual racial inequality, assassinations, priestly wrongdoing, Viet Nam and Watergate? Rosemary worries about much of the same agenda, but also is concerned with Chucky, who seems to have lost his step.

Chucky, a professional photographer and former ambassador, soon regains much of his sixties and early seventies fervor that put him at odds with presidents. He and Rosemary try to dislodge a church protected pediophile priest. That fails because Cardinal Archbishop Thomas John O'Neill is psychotic and paranoid especially when it comes to protecting one of his own. Chuck and Rosemary have a cause to remove both abominations even as a personal miracle that has not happened to this couple in two decades occurs.

The sixth O'Malley chronicle is an insightful look at the Carter Administration through the eyes of Chucky and Rosemary, alternating chapters. The story line provides a vivid scrutiny while insuring the lead couple feels complete. Chucky suffers from a mid life crisis as he begins to question all he once believed in while Rosemary encourages him to gracefully continue the fight for what both know is right. Andrew Greeley furnishes a delightful charmer that displays how the late 1970s, only twenty-five years ago, feel today like ancient history even to one who lived through it.

Harriet Klausner