No Longer Enemies, Not Yet Friends: An American Soldier Returns to Vietnam

by Frederick Downs Jr. and Frederick Downs

Book Overview

Downs' journey from hatred and suspicion to a larger understanding of human suffering is told here in this account of his trips to Vietnam as a member of the Vessey mission--an effort to extend... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393030474
• ISBN13: 9780393030471
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Soldier returns to Vietnam 20 years later

This book is essentially a memoir by Frederick Downs, former infantry lieutenant whose arm was blown off by a mine in the Vietnam war. Twenty years later he finds himself, now the director of the VA's Prosthetic and Sensory Aids Service, as a US team member re-establishing contact with Vietnam to determine their humanitarian needs. Downs faces his own prejudices and memories as he deals with his former enemies, and walks a political tightrope as the US tries to extend aid to Vietnam, without making it appear as though the US was trading aid for missing American soldier remains. Downs also examines his own preoccupation with his service in Vietnam, asserting, "Once a man has contributed his blood and his honor to a country, he is always a part of what it becomes." His own veteran friends question his actions in "helping the enemy."Downs' descriptions of life in late 1980's northern Vietnam are well-written and informative, as is his verbal portrait of his North Vietnamese counterpart, Dr. Bui Tung.A deeper book examining how the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong soldiers fought the war, written by former US soldiers who go through their own feelings of "dealing with the enemy," is _ Inside the Vc and the Nva: The Real Story of North Vietnam's Armed Force_ by Michael Lee Lanning and Dan Cragg.

soldier turns healer

No Longer Enemies,Not Yet Fiends is the story of Down's dual journeys: as an official for reapproachment between two adversaries;and his own internal journey from hatred and suspicion to a large understanding of commonality of human suffering.In his book the author has more than anyone else,tried to convince himself,as to why a soldier who has lost his arm in war against Vietnam be there to help the same.