After forty years of silence, a Vietnam veteran shares powerful personal memories of his year of combat.
This memoir of the Vietnam War is structured as a series of short vignettes that convey the emotional and physical landscape of the Vietnam War. It is a window into the war from the perspective of "the marine"-the author, who served in a rapid response assault force.
Carl Rudolph Small joined the Corps in 1969 at nineteen years old, coming from a small Vermont farming community. After boot camp and specialty training he landed in Da Nang as a private first class. With three battlefield promotions in eight months, he soon became a platoon sergeant.
Small did not talk of his experiences in Vietnam over the next forty years-but now, he has written this book so that veterans' families, including his own, can better understand what their loved ones experienced. It brings you inside the mind of the marine; you see what he sees, feel what he feels. You know him and where he comes from, what he is thinking, why he makes the decisions he needs to make.
Memories Unleashed is an assemblage of memories, consisting of stories that stand alone to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. It addresses the warrior, the lives of innocent people caught up in the war, and the American and Vietnamese families impacted by those who fought.
"Told through the perspective of a young marine squad leader serving in Vietnam, I can't imagine a more immediate and eloquent account of what it is like to experience the horror, the foreboding, even the tedium of war. Like the marine's sweetheart who awaits his love letters and return to their small town, I found myself praying page after page-be safe, come home, be safe, come home." -Jone B. Co
