LETTERS HOME FROM VIETNAM

“Letters Home from Vietnam”

Bernard Edelman, “Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam”

Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam is a collection of letters written home from soldiers and other personal serving in the Vietnam War (with the exception of a couple letters being to a soldier).  After each letter you also get the writers name, what are the areas they served in, if they were KIA or, if not, what they are currently doing. The book is divided into several chapters or sections.  You start with "Cherries": First Impressions and end with last Letters.  Some of the letters are uplifting, others aren't.  Some are of the soldiers giving details about a fight they were in or how they were wounded and some didn't even focused on that but on how they are helping the orphans and about Vietnam itself.  Some letters express a soldiers wish to come home yet others describe why the soldier wants to be there. I think a quote on the back cover sums this book up pretty well:  "Not a history book, not a war novel, Dear America is a book of truth." - Boston Globe It's hard to describe this book.  You are reading letters from real people as they were serving in a war that causes such turmoil on our country. It was a hard book to read yet a book I'm glad I read.  I did give the book a 5/5 rating because I think it's pretty powerful.  What better way to learn what the soldiers went through than to read letters where they talk about it openly?  There's no Hollywood glorification that you would see in a movie.  It's not just facts like you would read in a history book.  The emotions are raw, the emotions are real.  This book would ...