In Human Hands: Human Nature Examined Through Memoirs of Vietnam

"Perspective that is what these aged souls have to offer me. Each has lived through the Vietnam War and now devotes a few minutes of his or her time to the spilling of memories. These are the kinds of memories that bring tears to eyes and smiles to lips. They relate fears and losses, love and hope, despair and loneliness, desire and patriotism, knowledge and truth, and the lies that interweave all human affairs. I attempt to piece together a story of individuals who have spent unforgettable moments of life in a war-torn place, men and women who are fragile and incomplete, maturing in a matter of days to shoulder the weight of their unsought new reality. I portray the valiant men and women at home, as much soldiers in their own right, struggling to parent, to support, and to carry on in the absence of the ones they need the most. My Girl Scout Gold Award Project has led me to the doors of many diverse individuals. Their one shared history is the Vietnam War. I have decided to record their stories not the dry facts, but the real memories in this book, thereby sharing their reminiscences with the world ... It is often the small, seemingly inconsequential memories of the people who lived through these incidents that characterize the true legacy of history, for within the depths of memory are contained the accurate truths of humanity.