Take Care and Think Peace: Vietnam War Letters between a Son and Mother, 1969–1970

While a soldier in Vietnam, Dail and his mother Gin exchanged over two hundred letters describing their daily lives in 1969-70. Their correspondence reveals the intimacies and anxieties of a close family relationship during the most unpopular and senseless war in American history. This collection provides a lens into the realities of that war for both a grunt in Vietnam and a Midwestern suburban housewife, revealing through disparate experiences the fears, vulnerabilities, hopes, outrages, and agonies that consumed American culture during that era. Here is an excerpt from Dail's letter of 10 September 1969: "Kids are dying out in the jungle, entire villages succumb to Napalm, hairy anthropoids with sergeant's stripes and U.S. Army tattoos keep getting their combat thrills, and Nixon plays golf-day after day."