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War & Pieces: Damn You Vietnam
A Book by Joseph T. Neilson, Infinity Publishing
Reviewed by Karen St. John, VietNow Contributing Editor

With this book he has dedicated to those who participated on both sides of the war, Joseph Neilson is saying something about his quest to reconcile his memories of the Vietnam War with his current life.

Neilson volunteered for Vietnam in the late 1960s. He trained at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in 1968 – got up-close and personal with the 101st Airborne in Clarksville, Tennessee – and then headed out for Vietnam from Seattle. His first stint was as a forward observer (FO) with Delta Infantry Company at LZ Sabor, near the Cambodian border.

Soon Neilson was transferred to the Fire Direction Control (FDC), and put in charge of improving the response time. He details his successful efforts in getting backup artillery to the troops swiftly and accurately.

Later he was assigned to an education center in Pleiku, strained almost to the breaking point by military red tape and generals who were mostly concerned with earning their next star. Next, he joined a 155mm howitzer unit, as a recon survey officer, before returning to the States in 1969.

Once he got back home, Neilson was soon to discover that things would never again be as they once had been for him. He witnesses firsthand the way the country had split over the politics of the Vietnam War. He suffers the frightening effects of PTSD, and inept attention from the VA – and temporarily loses his way
in trying to make sense of it all.

While this book suffers from lack of professional editing and production, that doesn’t change the fact that this story was written by a real-live Vietnam veteran about his own combat experiences – and there’s not much that can detract from that.

When Neilson’s story begins, he is a senior in college, up for graduation. His grade-point average is low, so he sweats the final exams – not eager to face the humiliation of telling his parents and friends if he fails to get a degree. Luckily, he passes and graduates. The opening chapter might be a precursor to the much older Neilson who now looks back upon the Vietnam War as our country’s failure to make that grade, too – except that Neilson and his fellow veterans are
the ones who have to live with that humiliation.

Neilson’s humor is light and feathery, giving you permission to laugh, even when the subject matter is so serious that you aren’t certain if you should laugh or not. His observations are astute – such as the irritating soldier who “viewed himself as a general temporarily wearing a lieutenant’s bar” – but are too infrequent.

For those who came along after the war, and wonder why we were there, or why we didn’t stay, or how the veterans really were treated, the answers just might be in Neilson’s references to this issue. He has a gift for taking a complicated issue and telling it simply – the polarization of this country on the topic of the war, for example. Neilson accurately and objectively tells both sides of the story without flinching, and with passion.

He adeptly makes the point that the Vietnam War was really not a declared war, but a conflict, and that the fighting had already been going on for decades by the time we got there. And that, ultimately, our country looked at Vietnam as a pivotal time and place for stopping the advance of communism.

Neilson, like many others who volunteered, never doubted his decision to serve in combat for his country. The unspoken parallel to his choice, and the choice of many of our current military serving in Iraq, is uncanny.

Chapters later, when Neilson is home for good, he witnesses war protests, flag burnings, and Viet Cong flag wavings. And he takes verbal abuse as a “baby killer.” Yet when he notes that today’s soldiers returning from war receive patriotic applause, all he says about it, simply and profoundly, is, “It would have been nice.” It breaks your heart.

There is no greater shame that our country should feel than for the way we treated our Vietnam veterans. To say that it looks like we learned from the Vietnam War may be true, but it is not healing. Only in reading these personal stories will we ever be able to give our Vietnam veterans a piece of the credit they are due.

Joseph Neilson, I’m glad you made it back.

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

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