Description

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The discovery of a fifty-two-year-old Keds athletic shoe box filled with letters to James Slack's wife, Janie, from Vietnam opened the door for this journey back in time. While they reveal poignant moments shared between the young husband and wife, his almost daily letters created a unique journal.

Many books about Nam tell of combat and invariably the wounds incurred. This book is a glimpse of what typically happened next when the wounded, ideally after being stabilized by a medic or corpsman, were medivaced to a hospital. Trauma that occurred in a mere instant often led the wounded and their families down a life-long path of difficult recovery, and sometimes, grief. Slack was the last Registrar of the 85th Evacuation Hospital in Vietnam and shares what he witnessed, from dustoff to hospitalization. This is his story of the final months of the 85th, its dedicated staff, and the soldiers it served as the war in Vietnam was winding down.