Vietnam Veterans' Homecoming: Crossing the Line

Rating:
Summary: A Veteran Reaches for the Heart
Review: Carey Spearman reaches right for the heart with his poignant vignettes on life in Vietnam and at home. The very cover of his book reveals much about his message: Vietnam's wounds are not just carried by Americans, but by many more; nor are all jungles lush and tropical. The soldier depicted on the cover wears a mix of western and oriental gear. The soldier's shadow is simply a man's--without the trappings of war. The palms trees of Vietnam on the skyline give way to the concrete skyscrapers of urban America. Spearman's year in Vietnam amounted to a lifetime of tending the wounded and maimed of every sort of humanity: man, woman or child carried into the medic's ward. There he began to realize how war wounds not only the soldier, but the family back home, the villager in the jungle, the lover awaiting the letter that never arrives. Like good wine, Spearman's words come from years of reflection and hard work. They reveal a man who has come to terms with his own post traumatic stress and has accepted healing. He sees the world as filled with individuals. War takes it toll one by one. Families of those lost or wounded in Vietam or other conflicts, and anyone who has suffered a significant loss in his or her life will benefit from Spearman's vignettes. If you want to read something charged with deep emotion, yet minus the gore of "war stories," and one that helps to heal inner wounds, Spearman's book: Vietnam Veterans'Homecoming: Crossing the Line will be a wonderful read. For anyone teaching American history, or history buffs, Spearman's book casts a piercing light on the reality of war--its horror and far reaching effects. In language anyone can understand, this book is one I recommend for people who look for wisdom and a sense of peace. They will find both in Carey Spearman's reflections on life as a veteran of a war American wants to forget.

Rating:
Summary: IM GLAD YOU MADE IT HOME
Review: HEART TOUCHING, I MEET MR. SPEARMAN AT 2002 VETERANS DAY IN DC. HE TOLD ME THE BOOK HE WROTE HELPED HIM TO GET WELL! IM SO GLAD IT DID GOD BLESS HIM.

Rating:
Summary: IM GLAD YOU MADE IT HOME
Review: HEART TOUCHING, I MEET MR. SPEARMAN AT 2002 VETERANS DAY IN DC. HE TOLD ME THE BOOK HE WROTE HELPED HIM TO GET WELL! IM SO GLAD IT DID GOD BLESS HIM.

Rating:
Summary: This book should be in every Vet Center and VA Hospital
Review: I met author Carey Spearman when I attended the Tet '68 Reunion in Hampton, VA in 2003. Carey was trained as a combat medic and X-ray technician. He served in Vietnam March 1967 to May 1968. He wrote his book Vietnam Veterans' Homecoming: Crossing the Line as "a straightforward but diverse account of one man's post-war journey toward homecoming and healing." AND it is just that!

This amazing book has not only helped Carey heal himself from the war but I believe it has helped other Vets who read it already. AND I think it will continue to help others in the future. I'd like to share some of Carey's passages with you so you can get a feel for what his book is like.

One that grabbed me actually made me think about all the people affected by one individuals life and death. "No one in Nam ever died alone. Someone always hurt for them....You don't know how many people loved him on his way home, or how many people mourned for him before you even knew he was dead. There are a lot more people in that coffin than you know."

For those Vets who have not yet been able to find a way to make it back to their families in one way or another Carey wrote "we have made ourselves prisoners of Vietnam here and are locked in by an open door." That's a profound statement.

He had memories of his family while he was in Vietnam and they came into his head at one point. He wrote "when I was small, my grandmother and mother would hold me when I was hurting and scared. It seemed to take the pain away....My grandmother and mother had put me in touch with my female side." Carey tried to do the same thing for his patients in Vietnam but he realized that "my grandmother and mother did not make the pain go away. They absorbed it. By them holding or touching me...I was not alone." While with his patients they "knew they were not alone. We took in so much pain. We hurt so much inside....There wasn't a patient that I touched who was not touched by the both of you [his grandmother and mother]."

Carey has found a way to express himself and help others as well as him on the road to recovery from the war. He wrote that "vets say, they live for their families....I haven't heard too many vets say they live with their families." So in writing this profound book of statements and thoughts he is hopefully helping other Vets with their own emotions and feelings.

He knows all too well about PTSD. He wrote, "I just want to live life. So I will stay just a little bit outside of your normal life, so I can have some control."

He realizes how families too are affected by the war and their loved ones serving. He commented "I want to tell you how much I am hurting but when I start to look into your eyes and see the fear, I don't want to hurt you, but I do want you to know that part of my life. I watch you shy away from me....I feel like I am in a glass bubble....I don't want to remain in here but the only way out for me is to talk about what I went through and let some of the pain out....Stay close to my bubble. As long as I can see you out there, I know there is a way out for me." He knows he can reach out to someone for help as long as he can see them and this works for others as well.

One of the more important statements Carey made is "We are Missing in America (MIA). Maybe the next time we hug as vets, along with saying, 'Welcome home,' we should add, 'thanks for what you did then, and what you are trying to do now.' If we don't recognize what we have done over all of these years, no one else will." Isn't it sad that the general public doesn't welcome home Vets the way we welcome home each other?

In the Prologue was written that Carey' book "delivers an honest treatment of the personal side of a controversial war. It provides people who have no military experience or knowledge with glimpses of military life during wartime, and inside views of the emotional struggles soldiers endure during their post-war lives." That it does and more! AND I too look forward to Volume II.

This is a book for all to read. Perhaps then everyone can understand what at least one Vet has gone through in his life dealing with his wartime service to our country. This is a must read book and should be in Vet Centers, libraries and bookstores around the country.