Fragments
The Long Coming Home from Vietnam
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Fragments
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Narrated by:
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Bruce K. Berger
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Written by:
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Bruce K. Berger
About this listen
Bruce Berger, the author, finally came home 50 years after the Vietnam war when his memories crystallized into the 34 poems in this chapbook. He shipped to Vietnam as an infantryman in 1970 but was assigned most of the year to the Casualty Branch of the 101st Airborne Division at Camp Eagle, near Phu Bai.
As “next-of-kin” editor, he wrote hundreds of sympathy letters to grieving families back home for loss of their soldier, and sometimes helped gather fallen brothers on battle grounds to begin their long journeys home.
Through this lens, his poems evoke an overwhelming sense of loss on many fronts: the brave American soldiers who gave their lives in the long war; a village of South Vietnamese widows; the thousands of bui doi, innocent but reviled half-breed (Amerasian) children; the empty afterness of battle grounds and burials; the long, deadly reach of Agent Orange and PTSD into veterans’ lives still today; and the thunderous silence of missing parades back home. Writing these poems brought him home.
©2020 Bruce K. Berger (P)2020 Bruce K. Berger