To Bear Any Burden

The forty-eight American and Asian witnesses who recount their stories in this book are survivors of a great cataclysm, the Vietnam War. The veterans, refugees, and officials who speak here come from widely divergent backgrounds yet combine to narrate a synchronous chronicle, a human-scale history of the war in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. Reading their narratives, we hear them reliving crucial moments in the preparation, execution, and aftermath of war. We hear POW Dan Pitzer learning of the American buildup from his bamboo cage; Viet Cong operative Nguyen Tuong Lai describing a terrorist run into Saigon; Cambodian teacher Kassie Neou charming his executioners with fairy tales learned from the BBC. Their experiences in extreme circumstances of war, revolution, and imprisonment provide an epic drama of heroism in the midst of tragedy. This book gives not only riveting eyewitness accounts of the war, but reclaims from this tragic continuum larger patterns of courage and dedication. -- from Book Jacket.