***  Book Manuscript  ***

Back To Vietnam

Taming The Inner War

Geoffrey S. Poor   |   geoffpoor@gmail.com

Overview

Back To Vietnam is poised to create its own niche in book publishing. It is a new and different kind of Vietnam war memoir.

Back To Vietnam is the story of my return to Vietnam 

to stare down the demons.

Back To Vietnam is more than a story of how and why I went into the army, more than what happened during my military service. It's more than what happened when I got back, and it's more than how it changed my life. It's more than a description of the guilt of being part of a terribly misguided war.

Back To Vietnam is a ground-breaking event in Vietnam memoir publishing because it includes all those things PLUS the events and resonance of my two week solo backpacking trip through Vietnam decades after I'd been a soldier, and how that trip was a salve for my remorse. 

Almost four decades after being a US Army Combat Engineer in Vietnam's Central Highlands, I was tired of changing the subject whenever a conversation turned to that part of my life. I had been sent to Vietnam at the age of 19, and was a part of events that tore at my youth in ways I couldn't understand and wouldn't let me go. I couldn't shake the guilt. I had been a contributing member of a shameful mistake: an unnecessary war. 

Knowing I couldn't change the past, I decided to change myself.

So at the age of 56 I decided to go back, to revisit the places where the worst had happened. I wanted the catharsis of return, and I wanted to see a Vietnam where people lived without war and without fear, because those were the images and memories that were haunting me. I was asking Vietnam to help me feel better, to usher me along in my journey of self-reclamation. 

Vietnam gave me all I could have hoped for, and much, much more. 

I eloquently describe two parallel journeys; my two week solo travel in Vietnam, filled with the country's pervasive beauty, laughter and grace, and my inner search in finding peace with his military service.

Back To Vietnam is the story of that trip back. Interspersed throughout are stories from my year in the war; growing up and the bizarre process that led to my enlistment; and how I was able to tame that inner war. 

Current Status: Subject to editing, Back To Vietnam is a 

completed manuscript of 76,000 words.

I have about 1,000 pictures from the 2006 trip, and a few hundred from 

1968-1969, including some Then And Now pairings.

© 2023  Geoffrey S. Poor   |   geoffpoor@gmail.com