Friday, March 9, 2012

Comments on Michael D. Miller's book, "A Terrible Beauty: The Story of Task Force Builder" from a Vietnam vet:
Ah, the book. I had meant to read it over the weekend before I went to San Francisco last week, but I was too busy. So, I began reading on the plane while flying out to the Bay Area. Big Mistake! I began visibly sobbing on the second page of the foreword, and it went downhill from there. Trecia has become accustomed to these occasional outbursts, so she took it in stride, but a few of my fellow passengers obviously thought I was crazy. As I told you, I have let my wife proofread what I've been writing, the majority of which is a complete revelation to her, so from time to time during the flight, I would give her a particular page or paragraph of your book to read. Her reaction was always: "My God! His experiences were different, but he's saying exactly the same things as you; he was affected the same way!"

The book is good, Mike - accurate and from the heart. I remember quite well the young man who lives in those pages. It takes anyone who's been there back again, and it gives those who haven't been there a good sense of what it was like. For me, for a short time, I was one
of those guys in tiger fatigues you met at the Pepsi stand, and it has taken me a long time to crawl back out of that world. For forty
years, I packed it in a trunk, put it in the attic and pretended it was never real."

Our TFB message is powerful. We can be proud of it.

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