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(More customer reviews)Compelling, magnificent, a masterpiece!
John Wilbur returns to Viet Nam where his youthful patriotism once led him into hand-to-hand combat with the Viet Cong. He now relives the bloody battles and re-considers his role as a patriotic Navy Seal in a war which divided and gravely wounded the country he fought for. His retelling of the Vietnamese experience, personally and nationally, gives a wrenching account of what he was and what he did. Traveling through the country with Wilbur, you see and smell and taste Viet Nam as it is and as he knew it three decades before.
Wilbur went to battle to become a hero. He now takes on history and himself with a personal mission to make moral sense of both. The descriptive writing is gripping and powerful, the action scenes unforgettably vivid.
Anyone with an interest in the involvement of the U.S. in that war must read this to see what one of the first Navy Seals thinks now of his commitment to soldiering in a strange, foreboding and tragic land, a country he visits again with the tenderness and reverence he was forbidden to have as a youthful soldier.
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Split/Vision is John Wilbur's Vietnamese experience. A former U.S. Navy SEAL, he served eighteen months in Vietnam at the height of the war years (1967-68)where he fought and lived among the Vietnamese of the Mekong Delta that became like home. 32 years later he returns alone as a tourist. After a jarring start arriving at "Ho Chi Minh" City, he encounters a split-vision in discovering a new and different country while searching for the old. In his travels, Wilbur's narration reveals an internal journey that moves rhythmically between the now and then.
Drawn back to the Mekong, he muses over its ancient river and rice culture, recalls the dark nights hunting for the VC along the great brown rivers, living through the TET Offensive, a fight to near death, promises broken, redemption and renewal among the irresistible humanity of a people torn by war and decades of oppression.
The discovery of the North, the surprise of Hanoi, chance encounters and unusual coincidences create a vivid and vibrant montage. Delving into the nation's complex, social, cultural and political history, Wilbur's journey makes you understand the country's bitter past, struggling present and hopeful future.
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