In April 1968, we were a country at war with ourselves and increasingly with a small country halfway around the world: Vietnam. I don’t recall ever thinking about Vietnam when I started college in 1963. By 1968, it was all any of us could think about. This memoir was written for my grandchildren, but it will give anyone some sense of what it was like to serve a tour of duty in Vietnam. The job I had gave me an excellent overview of how the gears of the war machine meshed together. I have tried to convey this as best I can.

This is a memoir with a point of view. War is not a good thing, and the things it does to its warriors are especially bad. In these times when we seem to be constantly marching off to yet another war in yet another faraway place, the lessons learned (and forgotten) from Vietnam are more important than ever.

They say it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. You think so? Ask Frank Martinelli, and he might tell you different. It all began with the disappearance of his daughter Jennifer 20 years ago. She was on her way back to college and never made it. A year later a young girl named Rachel left Frank with an awful secret right before she died. The losses kept piling up. Soon his marriage was added to the toll.

After that he just quit trying to make sense of things. He put in his time and retired, a hollowed out man living a half-empty glass of a life, a story with an ending he didn't care about one way or another . . . Or so he thought until what started out as just another day in the life became a matter of life and death. His.

When an old Army buddy suddenly resurfaces to warn Frank that someone wants him dead, Frank starts asking why. The search for answers leads him back to Rachel's secret, a secret that someone apparently wants buried with Frank. In his quest to uncover the truth Frank finds a reason to start living again. The problem is, if Frank can't get to the bottom of things soon he may not have much time left to live.