Well Done, Those Men

Author: Barry Heard
Publisher: Scribe Publications
ISBN: 1921844949
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
After returning from Vietnam, I kept my illness hidden for years with long hours of work, study, and sport: anything that produced total exhaustion and allowed me to fall into a bed and sleep … But I was wearing out … I survived on two, sometimes four hours' sleep a night, became hyper-vigilant, wary of crowded places, and my general physical health deteriorated … Then one night I collapsed. I knew I was dying. In this intensely personal account, Barry Heard draws on his own experiences as a young conscript, along with those of his comrades to look back at life before, during, and after the Vietnam War. The result is a sympathetic vision of a group of young men who were sent off to war completely unprepared for the emotional and psychological impact it would have on them. It is also a vivid and searingly honest portrayal of the author’s post-war, slow-motion breakdown, and how he dealt with it. Well Done, Those Men attempts to make sense of what Vietnam did to the soldiers who fought there. It deals with the comic absurdity of their military training and the horror of the war they fought, and is unforgettably moving in recounting what happened to Barry and his comrades when they returned home to Australia. As we now know, most Vietnam vets had to deal with a community that shunned them, and with their own depression, trauma, and guilt. Barry Heard’s sensitive account of his long journey home from Vietnam is a tribute to his mates, and an inspiring story of a life reclaimed.

Well Done, Those Men

Author: Barry Heard
Publisher: Scribe Publications
ISBN: 1921753072
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
In this intensely personal account, Barry Heard draws on his own experiences as a young conscript, along with those of his comrades, to look back at life before, during, and after the Vietnam War. The result is a sympathetic vision of a group of young men who were sent off to war completely unprepared for the emotional and psychological impact it would have on them. It is also a vivid and searingly honest portrayal of the author’s post-war, slow-motion breakdown, and how he dealt with it. Well Done, Those Men attempts to make sense of what Vietnam did to the soldiers who fought there. It deals with the comic absurdity of their military training and the horror of the war they fought, and is unforgettably moving in recounting what happened to Barry and his comrades when they returned home to Australia. As we now know, most Vietnam vets had to deal with a community that shunned them, and with their own depression, trauma, and guilt. Barry Heard’s sensitive account of his long journey home from Vietnam is a tribute to his mates, and an inspiring story of a life reclaimed. PRAISE FOR BARRY HEARD ‘Well Done, Those Men is a human, moving, and brutally honest account of one man's emotionally racked journey from naive country boy to jungle soldier, psychologically scarred veteran, and ultimately triumphant victor over the demons within.' The Herald Sun ‘Heard gives meaning and sense to overused cliches such as “stolen youth”, “buried horrors” and even “mateship”.’ The Age

Well Done, Those Men

Author: Barry Heard
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458774163
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 454

Book Description
In this personal account Barry Heard looks back on his life and his time as a conscript to the Vietnam War. He relates how he and his fellow soldiers were completely unprepared for the emotional and psychological impact of the conflict in Vietnam, and unaware that the horror of war would return nightmarishly in their post-war life.

When I Turned Nineteen

Author: Glyn Haynie
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780998209500
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
It's the year 1969. I was serving in the U.S. Army with my brothers of First Platoon Company A 3/1 11th Bde Americal (23rd Infantry) Division. We were average American sons, fathers, husbands, or brothers who'd enlisted or been drafted from all over the United States and who'd all come from different backgrounds. We came together and formed a brotherhood that will last through time. I share my experiences about weeks of boredom and minutes to hours of terror and surviving the heat, carrying a 60-pound rucksack, monsoons, a forest fire, a typhoon, building a firebase, fear, death and fighting the enemy while mentally, physically, and morally exhausted.

Australian Soldiers in South Africa and Vietnam

Author: Effie Karageorgos
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 147258581X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

Book Description
The South African and Vietnam Wars provoked dramatically different reactions in Australians, from pro-British jingoism on the eve of Federation, to the anti-war protest movements of the 1960s. In contrast, the letters and diaries of Australian soldiers written while on the South African and Vietnam battlefields reveal that their reactions to the war they were fighting were surprisingly unlike those on the home fronts from which they came. Australian Soldiers in South Africa and Vietnam follows these combat men from enlistment to the war front and analyses their words alongside theories of soldiering to demonstrate the transformation of soldiers as a response to developments in military procedure, as well as changing civilian opinion. In this way, the book illustrates the strength of a soldier's link to their home front lives.

'Boredom is the Enemy'

Author: Amanda Laugesen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317173023
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
War is often characterised as one percent terror, 99 per cent boredom. Whilst much ink has been spilt on the one per cent, relatively little work has been directed toward the other 99 per cent of a soldier's time. As such, this book will be welcomed by those seeking a fuller understanding of what makes soldiers endure war, and how they cope with prolonged periods of inaction. It explores the issue of military boredom and investigates how soldiers spent their time when not engaged in battle, work or training through a study of their creative, imaginative and intellectual lives. It examines the efforts of military authorities to provide solutions to military boredom (and the problem of discipline and morale) through the provisioning of entertainment and education, but more importantly explores the ways in which soldiers responded to such efforts, arguing that soldiers used entertainment and education in ways that suited them. The focus in the book is on Australians and their experiences, primarily during the First World War, but with subsequent chapters taking the story through the Second World War to the Vietnam War. This focus on a single national group allows questions to be raised about what might (or might not) be exceptional about the experiences of a particular national group, and the ways national identity can shape an individual's relationship and engagement with education and entertainment. It can also suggest the continuities and changes in these experiences through the course of three wars. The story of Australians at war illuminates a much broader story of the experience of war and people's responses to war in the twentieth century.

...and a hard rain fell

Author: John Ketwig
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN: 1402224737
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 434

Book Description
"A magnetic, bloody, moving, and worm's-eye view of soldiering in Vietnam, an account that is from the first page to last a wound that can never heal. A searing gift to his country."-Kirkus Reviews The classic Vietnam war memoir, ...and a hard rain fell is the unforgettable story of a veteran's rage and the unflinching portrait of a young soldier's odyssey from the roads of upstate New York to the jungles of Vietnam. Updated for its 20th anniversary with a new afterword on the Iraq War and its parallels to Vietnam, John Ketwig's message is as relevant today as it was twenty years ago. "Solidly effective. He describes with ingenuous energy and authentic language that time and place."-Library Journal "Perhaps as evocative of that awful time in Vietnam as the great fictions...a wild surreal account, at its best as powerful as Celine's darkling writing of World War One."-Washington Post

Vietnam

Author: Deborah Challinor
Publisher: Scholastic Australia
ISBN: 1743628005
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 177

Book Description
Here we are, fighting alongside the so-called mightiest nation on earth with all the firepower you could ask for—jets, B52s, tanks, gunships, arty, rockets, napalm, you name it—and the VC are creeping around with a rifle each and we still can’t beat the beggars! And it’s getting worse, not better. It’s 1969. The sixties are still swinging, man is headed for the moon and surfing-mad Davey is out to win the inaugural Newcastle Under-14 Surf Championship. But when his older brother Tom is drafted to fight in the army, the far-away war in Vietnam creates waves very close to home.

Archaeology, Heritage, and Wellbeing

Author: Paul Everill
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000590100
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
Archaeology, Heritage, and Wellbeing fills an important gap in academic literature, bringing together experts from archaeology/ historic environment and mental health research to provide an interdisciplinary overview of this emerging subject area. The book, uniquely, provides archaeologists and heritage professionals with an introduction to the ways in which mental health researchers view and measure wellbeing, helping archaeologists and other heritage professionals to move beyond the anecdotal when evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of such initiatives. Importantly, this book also serves to highlight to mental health researchers the many ways in which archaeology and heritage can be, and are being, harnessed to support non-medical therapeutic interventions to improve wellbeing. Authentic engagement with the historic environment can also provide powerful tools for community health and wellbeing, and this book offers examples of the diverse communities that have benefited from its capacity to promote wellbeing and wellness. Archaeology, Heritage, and Wellbeing is for students and researchers of archaeology and psychology interested in wellbeing, as well as researchers and professionals involved in health and social care, social prescribing, mental health and wellbeing, leisure, tourism, and heritage management.

When He Came Home

Author: Dianne Dempsey
Publisher: Australian Scholarly Publishing
ISBN: 1922454664
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 202

Book Description
When the Vietnam War veterans returned home to Australia, neither the veterans nor their partners were aware of the atrocious psychological harm with which they had been afflicted. Post-traumatic stress disorder had not yet been recognised and as the men fell victim to terrible moods and illnesses, they capitulated to their pain and isolated themselves and their families. With great courage and without recognition, veterans’ wives held their families together in the face of government and community indifference and did so for decades. When He Came Home is a belated recognition of these women, and it also focuses on how the issues of PTSD and suicide affect veterans who participate in contemporary conflicts. Told within an informed historical context and employing intimate narrative interviews, this important book examines the unexamined: how so many families have been brought to their knees and how such suffering can be prevented.