Almost Back

Rating:
Summary: An amazing story of love and war's tragedy
Review: If reading a book can bring tears to my eyes several times throughout reading it-I know it's a very good book-and this is an excellent book about Richard "Dick" Genest who lost his life in Vietnam and his widow Brenda Cavanaugh.

The author introduced the reader to both families as well as background on each. She wrote of how his father "based all his decisions about family matters and the family business solely on the return of his son" and that his mother "greeted every morning with thoughts of her son...embraced every night as one less they would be without him." His sister "counted the days until she could finally share all the growing up she had done during his absence."

She interviewed each family member and some of Dick's friends. She read the many written letters and listened to the tape recordings between Brenda and Dick. She pieced together all their lives to write this amazing story of love and devotion between two young people and the heartbreak that war brought to their entire families. She brought everything together magnificently!

Dick and Brenda's love grew from the first day they met in February 1965. From then on they were almost inseparable. Whenever they were apart they wrote, called or tape recorded messages to each other daily. They married in 1967. They vowed to stay together but the Vietnam War was about to separate them.

After being classified 1-A for the draft Dick joined the New Hampshire National Guard believing the Guard would never leave the state or at least not the country. But he was wrong.

Neither Dick nor Brenda believed in this undeclared war. He was at Fort Bragg undergoing field training in June 1968 when his son was born. He managed to get home for a week.

After learning his unit was in fact going to Vietnam he went back home for two weeks in August and spent countless hours holding Brenda and cradling the baby "then he was gone."

By mid-September 1968 Dick was in Vietnam. For the next year he wrote letters home daily telling Brenda how he felt about the war, how much he missed her and Dickie and how he couldn't wait to return home.

On 25 August 1969 he wrote his last letter home "I cannot wait to wrap my arms around you....You are my life." His unit was pulling out the next morning. Dick was going home. But it was not to be.

The Genest and Cavanuagh family helped Jami Janes with this book as a tribute to Dick Genest and to help Dickie learn more about his late father. It was also in many ways a healing tool for Brenda. This was indeed Brenda's story as much as it was Dick's and well worth the box of Kleenex to get through it.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing book!
Review: This book is amazing. Keep the tissues on hand as you'll surely need them to get through this tragic tale.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing story of love distroyed by the Vietnam War.
Review: This book was an enjoyable albeit teary insight into a love story that was caught up in the tragedy of the Vietnam war. Jami tells the story through many of Dick's heartfelt and honest letters to his wife Brenda. Although the book can get a little slow in the middle, hang it there for an amazing ending. It is truly unbelievable, shocking and terribly sad. Brenda was an extremely courageous woman and her story very remarkable.