lindamariafrank:

“HEROES TO THE END: AN ARMY CORRESPONDENT’S LAST DAYS IN VIETNAM” by JIM SMITH.

Read Jim Smith’s Comment below.

I was pleased to have been interviewed on Aug. 8 on Linda Frank’s half-hour cable show on LTV in East Hampton called “The Writer’s Dream” (https://www.facebook.com/The-Writers-Dream-144688198966801/). I discussed how I came to write and self-publish my Vietnam memoir “Heroes to the End” (www.heroestotheend.com). Linda and I are members of the Long Island Authors Group.

Because Linda is an experienced interviewer and an author herself, she posed two questions that I rarely had faced in about 110 previous speaking engagements and media interviews:

How did the experience change me? Seeing the carnage left by North Vietnamese attacks and by American bombs, bullets and projectiles took away any thoughts I may have had about war being glamorous. I had a mini-nervous breakdown in 1975 as the South was overrum by the NVA, I worshipped with the Quakers for seven years and joined Veterans for Peace. I also became involved with United Veterans Beacon House, which runs homeless shelters for veterans and others. I did not join a VFW post until 2017, when I joined Henderson-Marino Post 1819 in Port Washington, N.Y. I was named Adjutant there.

Is there such a thing as a just war? I said that our response to the 9/11 attacks, the war in Afghanistan, was a just one, but I felt the war in Iraq was not. That does not mean I want to diminish the service of our troops there. They followed orders and did their duty. But I think that war was built on a lie: that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It was really about regime change and George Bush’s crusade to finish a regime his father had failed to terminate. I also told Linda that I felt WW II was a just war, to combat dictators and hateful ideologies.

This was one interview where I thought the interviewer really understood myself, my view of my service (I’m proud to have served) and my thoughts on war. I am happy to say that I will be interviewed again on Sept. 19 at LTV by Joe Giannini on his program “Gung Ho.” and “The Writer’s Dream”