VietNow National Magazine
The VietNow Book Club
(Magazines and Videos Too)

From Time to Time
A book by Robert Newell
Reviewed by Karen St. John, VietNow Contributing Editor

Robert Newell’s book, From Time to Time: A Soldier’s Story of Life and the Vietnam War, does nothing to put a soldier’s mind to rest about the Vietnam War. Instead, it seems that Newell’s purpose is to mirror a time of real people and real actions – of brutal truth engulfed in a harsh war.

Newell joined the army in 1966. He landed at Pleiku, Central Highlands, in Vietnam, in May of 1967, and from there flew to Ducpho where he joined 2 Field Force Headquarters, Company, 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor. His duties included seeing that tanks, APCs, and trucks had enough spare parts to be fully operational. In June of 1967 he was transferred to Lai Khe, northeast of Saigon. Within ten months of landing in Vietnam, Newell had earned a Bronze Star. In 1968 he moved from 1st Squad, 1st Platoon, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion 16th Infantry to 5th Infantry Battalion Alpha Company 9th Infantry 1st Squad 1st Platoon, stationed at Rach Kien.

The words on the pages of From Time to Time flow along easily. The personal story of Newell, however, does not. The book begins with a brief description of Newell’s father. The victim of familial neglect, Newell’s father was booted out on his own at the vulnerable age of eleven, and enlisted in the service as soon he was old enough. He developed an addiction to the soldier’s life and a prejudice against anyone different from himself. A violent man, his regular beatings upon Newell took turns with his extreme devotion to instilling a sense of duty in his son.

Newell himself did not find Army life very different from his civilian life. “We were told to hate and obey. It was not new to me. I had been raised to hate.” Newell guesses that ninety-nine percent of those who went to Vietnam were normal before they left, but he knew he was an exception. “…I was already damaged goods.” The reader senses a walking time bomb in Newell, and wonders exactly how and when it will explode.

Of Newell’s experiences during the Vietnam War, it is an understatement to say that they are disturbing in their prejudice and unnerving in their violence. He spared no one his anger or ruthless cruelty. He was invaluable as a point man, though, protecting his brothers in combat from ambush. Describing himself, he says, “I never rode high over anyone, just did my own thing, but the men knew that if you were with Newell, you would live that day.” But Newell understands where he was at that time in his life. “The edge I had over everyone else was my violent past. My father was the scariest person I knew. The beatings from him were horrific, so I would ask myself, what was the worst Charlie could do to me?”

Disturbingly, he found himself beginning to enjoy the violence more and more. “By 1968, I was well on the way to becoming mad,” he admits. It was because he had stepped into his father’s shoes. “I had become him. You could not tell the difference between us.”

The language in From Time to Time is gruff. Newell’s writing is constantly peppered with “gooks” and “whores.” In spite of that he often displays an uncanny ability to tell it like it is, only better. His description of the rain that felt
“like being pelted by thousands of BBs” is almost poetic. He is staunch in his disapproval of the medication the Army doled out to the troops during combat, and at a VA hospital in Massachusetts, where he played by the rules to avoid a padded cell.

Throughout his story he is periodically moved to pay his respect to those listed on The Wall, citing as many of his fallen comrades as he can. He still suffers from daily flashbacks. Sometimes when he goes back, he says he is not always in-country, but in his childhood hovel back in Massachusetts.

From Time to Time lacks a focused plot, and Newell bounces often from memory to memory, peppering the reader with names that aren’t familiar, and with acronyms that perhaps only a soldier could understand. He often tapers off from a story that needs some conclusion. But Newell himself knows this better than anyone. “My story comes in bits and pieces. Small slices. Sometimes a dream or sometimes a flash in the mind, or what mind I have left.”

Still, Newell deserves a lot of credit. What keeps From Time to Time from becoming a tribute to evil is Newell himself. He is deeply ashamed of the brutality he lived. He is painfully honest of the violent times in which he fought, and how morally wrong it was for him to be a willing, almost gleeful, participant.

His remorse is crystal clear in every chapter. And although he did not record his deliverance from evil, of love given and received, his successful marriage, and the four children he and his wife raised, the reader can still sense his redemption in the raw honesty with which he writes.

Normally, when a soldier is told, “I’m glad you made it back,” the meaning is back from the war, back from in-country, back from the hell of combat. But for Robert Newell, I would like to revise that.

Robert Newell, I’m glad you made it back – not just from the war, in-country, and the hell of combat, but back from the horror that was your father. May you now live in the love and peace you should have had decades ago as a child.

Karen St. John is a freelance writer, living in Indianapolis. You can read more of her writing at www.stjohnjournals.com.

Back to VietNow Book Club

Back to VietNow Magazine page.

Back to top of page.

VietNow National
1835 Broadway – Rockford, Illinois 61104
800.837.VNOW – 815.227.5100
nationalhq@vietnow.com

We can't continue our work without your help.
Please click here to donate now.