Remembering Heaven's Face : A Story of Rescue in Wartime Vietnam

by Balaban, John

• ISBN13: 9780820324159
• ISBN10: 0820324159
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr

Summary

I volunteered to go to Vietnam, but as a conscientious objector to war. . . . While most of these events took place in the midst of the war, this is not exactly a story about the war, but a story of rescue. Most of the children I helped save--scalped, burned, blasted, or shot when I found them--are now adults, parents or even grandparents themselves. . . . And while many of my funny, wise, reckless, young American friends of those days are dead, what they did and what they learned is not. It is as if all of us were being watched, all of us journeying under a brilliant blue sky that is the face of heaven.--from the preface

Author Biography

John Balaban is the author of eleven books of poetry and prose, including Locusts at the Edge of Summer, winner of the 1998 William Carlos Williams Award, and the popular and critical success Spring Essence: The Poetry of Ho Xuan Huong. His poetry, translations, and fiction have received wide acclaim, including two National Book Award nominations. He is Poet-in-Residence and professor of English at North Carolina State University.

Table of Contents

Preface	9	(4)
PART ONE GOING OUT ONE DAY	13	(118)
Captured	15	(12)
Why I Was in Vietnam	27	(12)
River Market	39	(7)
The End of Orientation	46	(8)
Dragonflies in Autumn	54	(22)
The Poor American	76	(14)
Caught in the Crossfire	90	(17)
Joining the Victims	107	(10)
The Arrow That Flieth by Day	117	(14)
PART TWO CALLING THE WANDERING SOULS	131	(88)
Doing Good	133	(11)
Lives Like Dust	144	(28)
Hanging Out in Saigon	172	(16)
Taking the Children Home	188	(15)
Prince Buu Hoi's Watch	203	(16)
PART THREE THE RED CLOTH	219	(56)
Duking it out Outside the Royal Hawaiian	221	(8)
Twiggy and Steve	229	(11)
Phoenix Island	240	(7)
Heaven, Humankind, Earth	247	(9)
The Red Cloth	256	(9)
Two Finches	265	(10)
PART FOUR AFTER OUR WAR	275	(2)
What We Carried Home	277	(10)
After Our War	287	(3)
Returning	290	(9)
The Institute of Literature, Hanoi	299	(7)
The Lake of the Returned Sword	306	(6)
Finding the Sky Reflected in Rivers	312	(13)
Can Tho	325	(5)
Gitelson	330	(2)
Going Out and Coming Home	332