"Escape from Saigon - a Novel"

The New York Times Profiles Authors Michael Morris and Dick Pirozzolo on their Agent Orange Experience and Possible Expansion of VA Benefits

 Clay Risen, Deputy Opinion Editor of The New York Times recently profiled Dick Pirozzolo and Michael Morris authors of "Escape from Saigon - a Novel" for an article on the medical consequences of spraying the defoliant Agent Orange throughout Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

Risen asked Pirozzolo and Morris about their  encounter with Agent Orange when they served in Vietnam, its effect on their health and their struggles with the Veterans Administration over benefits in connection with exposure since that time.

The article, titled Agent Orange and Us is part of The Times year-long Vietnam '67 series. In this piece Risen points out that the VA is now considering whether to link four more illnesses to Agent Orange exposure as well as whether to extend benefits to Navy and Marine personnel who served offshore. The four ailments are bladder cancer, Graves' disease, Parkinson's disease-like symptoms and hypertension, all of which are more prevalent in Vietnam veterans than those of the same age who did not serve in Vietnam.

Some veterans who served stateside and flew in airplanes such as the C-123 that transported or sprayed Agent Orange may also qualify for benefits. Agent Orange is commonly used to describe a host of defoliants used during the war.

"If  you have relatives or friends whom you believe might qualify, please let them know about these possible changes. Every town or county in America has a VA agent or the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) can provide details," urges Pirozzolo. 

Risen points out: "During the Vietnam War, the United States sprayed some 20 million gallons of the defoliant known as Agent Orange over South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Nearly four million people were exposed to the chemical, which the government claimed was non-toxic. 

"The government was wrong: Fifty years later, approximately one million people in Asia and the United States suffer from a range of disorders, including multiple forms of cancer, that have been linked to Agent Orange exposure.

For the complete article visit The New York Times  series Vietnam '67 

 

Massachusetts Author Laura Harrington Wins Praise for Her Novel on the 

Environmental Impact of Vietnam and the Heartbreak of Coming Home

Right on the heels of The New York Times article on the perils of Agent Orange exposure and how it affected the authors of "Escape  from Saigon," a new novel on war and its environmental consequences comes to light. 

"A Catalogue of Birds,"  by Gloucester, Massachusetts author Laura Harrington, tells the story of a family recovering from the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the mysterious disappearance of a young woman, while also  exploring the environmental destruction that accompanies war.

When Billy Flynn returns from the war, the lone survivor of a helicopter crash, he struggles to regain the life he once had. His sister, Nell, and their family do all they can to save him.

Harrington's new novel has received early praise from Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and The Week as one of the 28 books to read this year. Rachel Kadish, an award-winning author, wrote: “Laura Harrington weaves American history and natural history into a riveting story of damage and resilience. Harrington’s voice is as clear and distinctive as a bird call.”

Harrington, a 25-year resident of Gloucester, has written extensively for theater, including plays, operas, musicals, radio plays, screenplays, television scripts, and lyrics. In 2011, she published her first novel, "Alice Bliss," which received widespread praise, winning the Massachusetts Book Award Winner for Fiction and becoming a Boston Globe bestseller.

Harrington's family is no stranger to war and service. The author, whose father served in World War II, remembers well the era of the Vietnam War and the conversations that took place around the family dinner table.

Says the author:  At the heart of the novel is the relationship between siblings Nell and Billy Flynn. Nell excels academically and is headed to college and a career in science. Billy, a passionate artist, enlists as a pilot to fulfill his lifelong dream of flying. He returns home so seriously wounded he may never use his right hand again. As Billy struggles to regain the life he once had, Nell and their family will have to do all that’s possible to save him.

Harrington is the 2008 Kleban Award Winner for most promising librettist in American Musical Theatre. Harrington has twice won both the Massachusetts Cultural Council Award and the Clauder Competition for best new play in New England. 

For the complete review and Laura Harrington's upcoming speaking events and books signings visit  The Gloucester Times.

"Letting Go." Reflections on the 42nd anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War

The Rev. Sarah Robbins-Cole, Pastor of St. Michaels Episcopal Church in Holliston, Mass. and Protestant Chaplain of Wellesley College

Earlier last week, I was chatting with Sarah—my friend and neighbor—who is otherwise known as The Rev. Sarah Robbins Cole. She told me she was working on her sermon for Easter Sunday the theme was letting go. I suppose the idea is there cannot be rebirth without letting go of those things that tie us to the past.

"Any thoughts?" she inquired. 

An apt subject as April 30th approaches— the 42nd anniversary of the end of the Vietnam! This was also a chance to plug "Escape from Saigon - a Novel," so I mentioned how "letting go" is a theme running throughout the story.  The struggle with letting go is voiced by Billy Freda, the high school friend, who has to let go of the moment he scored the winning point in the championship game, US Ambassador Graham Martin who cannot let go of South Vietnam that had become intertwined with his identity, the reporters who devoted their youth to covering the war and have to find a new life elsewhere, and of course, the two Vietnam veterans who wrote the book—myself and Michael Morris, who saw combat in the Vietnam War as a young soldier in 1967.

Here is what The Rev. Sarah Robbins-Cole, Rector of St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Holliston, Massachusetts told her congregation about letting go on Easter Sunday Morning 2017.

 Easter 2017

Marie Kondo of the book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing is perhaps one of the best known books that has come our way from the field of decluttering and home organization. If you have not read the book, the basic premise of the book is to get rid of things that do not spark joy. Marie Kondo recommends taking out every item you own, in a particular sequence, and touching each item, and if it does not spark joy – out it goes. She has other helpful hints such as not buying more specialized storage containers to hold yet more clutter, and folding your clothes, for example your shirts, in a way that finding a shirt is as easy as flicking through record albums – because they all are standing on end.

The desire to hold on and to accumulate is as old as time and man. Perhaps it’s because we falsely equate accumulation with security. If I just hang on to clothes, household items, food, photos, books, I will never be in want. Who knows? I might need one of these things later.

Or we mistakenly believe that if we throw things away or recycle them – somehow we won’t remember or value what that item represented.

Or sometimes what is harder is we hold on to emotions and memories - something that has hurt us deeply. Maybe you are holding onto a grudge, or an imaginary contract with someone (that is, unless they do x, I will not forgive, move on, or be nice, etc.,). And somehow letting go would be to admit defeat.

When people have asked me this week what I am preaching on this week – and I tell them that I am working on a sermon about letting go – it has been interesting to hear people’s response.

When I told my neighbor Dick Pirozzolo, who has just published the book, Escape from Saigon - a Novel this year, he said, “funny you should say that”. He is himself a Vietnam Vet, but he said in his research and during his book tour, while he has encountered many veterans who live full and rich lives, he also said that he has met a fair number of veterans who live and breathe their days in Vietnam every day—even though the end of this month will mark the 42nd anniversary of the ending of that war. “After all,” Dick commented, “you are 19 years old, your friends are all back home working in a shoe store, and you are in a strange country, surrounded by people speaking a foreign language, and you are getting shot at.”

But he said, the problem is that what happens to some of us is that we get stuck at 19. Our entire identity is formed around being a Vietnam Veteran and that does not allow a new identity to form. Our lives are dedicated to remembering that time – from the stories we share to the social media platforms we belong to and contribute to.

Another friend of mine, who works with students, said to me, “that is such an important message” because she finds that some of her students cling to ideas, ideologies, and identities in ways that are unhealthy because they perpetuate their sense of being powerless victims in a hostile world.

Or another friend talked about a woman she knew who was the team mom of a volleyball team – and she did everything – she organized uniforms, social events, coaches gifts, the booster club – but at the end of her son’s junior year, at the end of season party, when he was not elected captain by his peers for the following year, she was absolutely devastated. She refused to talk to anyone for the rest of the party and her son never played volleyball again – so attached was she to the idea of her son being captain.

I am sure we all have examples from our own lives - elderly parents who cling to the idea of unrealistic independence, or children who can’t seem to quite realize they have actually reached adulthood, a parent who cannot let go of their adult children, etc., etc.

The subject of letting go is not just a superficial self-help issue. They are deep spiritual concerns – which come to the very heart of our gospel lesson for this morning. Jesus tells Mary – do not hold on to me. Literally – do not cling to me as I am now. I am yet to ascend to the Father. Jesus is telling her that she must not cling to him because his time on earth is done. And why that is important is that first of all, after the crucifixion they can’t just go back to the way things were – and secondly, the ascension is necessary so that the work of Jesus will no longer be constrained to his little corner of Israel – but will spread to the four corners of the earth.

And it’s not just the idea of the physically present Jesus she is going to have to let go of. If she wants to share in that resurrected life of new life and rebirth – she is going to have to let go of everything that is holding her back – she may have to let go of her anger at the Romans for crucifying Jesus, she may have to have to let go of her feelings of resentment at the disciples for handing Jesus over, betraying Jesus, and falling asleep while Jesus was praying when he very clearly asked them to stay awake. She may have to let go of her bitterness toward a world that allows an innocent man to die. She may have to let go of her wrath toward her own people for their maleficent fickleness – who on Palm Sunday lauded Jesus as King – and then jeered Jesus just a few days later when he really needed them.

But let me be clear - there is a big difference between letting go and forgetting. Letting go – means having a willingness to move forward, to not be stuck in the muck and mire of past wrongs. Forgetting is pretty near impossible, and forgiving can be a very long process indeed.

What we celebrate today is the resurrection. We celebrate that when one thing ends – and when we let go and give it to God, and trust that God will do something good and meaningful and life-giving to that of which we let go – we too will live the resurrected life.

God invites us to new life each and every moment of our lives – not to cling to the past – but to be engaged in our lives right here and right now. It is just as Joseph Campbell, the preeminent expert in comparative mythology and religion who wrote: We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.


 Along with being coauthor of "Escape from Saigon - a Novel" set during the final days of America's "first television war," Dick Pirozzolo is managing director of Pirozzolo Company Public Relations, an international communication firm based in Boston, Massachusetts.

 

War Without End

"Escape from Saigon - a Novel" takes place at the end of a protracted war that began a half century ago—America's First Television War it was called—and much of the story and its characters center around on the brave journalists who covered those events. Among the main characters in our story by Michael Morris and Dick Pirozzolo are Lisette Vo, the first Vietnamese-American woman to report on the war for a major US TV network and Sam Esposito, the ambivalent,  Yale 1962 graduate, whose relentless reporting for The Washington Legend won him praise from this editors, the generals and infuriated every president he wrote about, especially the vindictive Richard Nixon.

The names of some of the journalists of that era are well known: David Halberstam, Walter Cronkite, Frances Fitzgerald, George Esper, Peter Arnett, Dickie Chappell who lost her life to a landmine or Beverly Deepe who arrived in Vietnam in 1964 as a full-time correspondent.

But what of now—who will we be the war correspondents of today, whose deeds and passion for the truth will figure into future historical novels?  

One of them will surely be Carmen Gentile who has been covering Afghanistan and Iraq for over a decade and is the author of a forthcoming book  "Blindsided by the Taliban" that was inspired by his being wounded by a rocket-propelled grenade that nearly cost him his sight. 

Here is the latest dispatch from Carmen Gentile and written exclusively for the "Escape from Saigon" blog.

 War Without End By Carmen Gentile 

ISTANBUL March 8, 2017 --- Late last year I was on a reporting trip to Mosul, where Iraqi and Kurdish forces, along with the help of the various militias, were attempting to force the Islamic State (ISIS) from the country’s second-largest city. 

What I saw was an all-too-familiar horror. Rows of homes are pancaked by mortar fire. Along the road are charred shells of vehicles used in suicide bombings and the bodies of insurgent fighters, left in the streets of Mosul to decompose. 

The gruesome tableau in Mosul is an unfortunate continuation of the more than decade-long war US forces waged throughout Iraq. I covered that conflict periodically in the company of young soldiers tasked with not only fighting a largely invisible enemy, but trying to re-establish a military and police force that were dismantled and destroyed during the country’s invasion. Calling their task “no win” was an exercise in extreme optimism. Sisyphus has a better chance of getting his stone to remain at the top of the hill. 

There is no shortage of “no-win” wars, flares ups and skirmishes to cover these days. Though statistically there is far less armed violence now then during the just about any period of the 20th century, the killing and maiming seems ever more confounding and less reasoned, a dark echo of the lessons not learned in Vietnam.  

Since I started covering global conflict 13 years ago, I’ve seen the worst of humanity on display in the Middle East, South Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean. 

That first time was in Haiti was while covering the 2004 coup. 

The country’s president was facing mounting pressure from an armed opposition force to step down. Clashed between the president’s loyalists and the rebels resulted in a daily dose of gruesome killings. 

One morning, I came across a group of Haitians in the capital standing around the body of man who had been tortured and shot. His twisted corpse laid in a pool of his own blood. A group of curious children approached the body, looking it over with a mixture of tentativeness and fascination, then proceeded one at a time to jump over the mangled victim as if it were a game. 

Days later the U.S. Marines landed in Haiti in an effort to restore some semblance of order and curtail the killing. Months later, U.N. peacekeepers led by Brazilian forces arrived to take over. They’ve been there ever since. 

Years later, when I was in Haiti to covering the earthquake, I met young children that spoke reasonable Portuguese because they’d grown up in the shadow of armed foreigners.
 
As horrified as I was by the degradation of humanity in Haiti, no war has affected me more personally that Afghanistan. I’ve spent years chronicling NATO and Afghan force efforts to contain a persistent enemy with many named but the sake of simplicity I refer to under of the umbrella of “Taliban.”

I’ve ridden in convoys along IED-laced roads, heard the whizz and snap of Taliban gunshots, met young men injured in blasts and firefights robbing them of their youthful vigor and sometimes limbs. 

It’s where I came closest to losing my own life. A few years ago I was shot in the head with an rocket-propelled grenade that fortunately failed to detonate, an injury that in the annals of warfare is considered of the strangest on record.

 

 

 

Meanwhile it’s been nearly 16 years since the initial invasion of Afghanistan and the country is perpetually poised on the brink of full-scale collapse. The government propped up by Washington barely extends beyond the city limits of the capital Kabul. The rural hinterlands are largely lawless or under Taliban rule and other cities have been periodically taken over by the hardliners. 

Reports are now circulating that the Russians helping the Taliban in its fight against US-led forces, a historical “F.U.” for America’s covert assistance to the Mujahadeen that fought the Soviets whose sons and grandsons are today’s Taliban. 

It could be considered a tragicomedy worth a chuckle if countless civilians haven’t been killed amid this cycle violence that seemingly grows faster and more ludicrous with every passing year. 

Same story in Iraq, where I’m heading back later today to cover the continuing effort to retake Mosul, a fight whose progress is measured by each building seized from the Islamic State. As the generals congratulate themselves publicly for their progress, hundreds of thousands of innocents flee the city knowing that if they ever make it back they’ll finding little left of the life their were forced to leave behind amid the piles of rubble that were once their homes. 

  

 

 

 

 

Reporter Carmen Gentile is the author of the upcoming book “Blindsided by the Taliban,” a chronicle of his injury in Afghanistan.
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

S'​ Wellesley Report Profiles Dick Pirozzolo on Novel's Debut

Longtime Wellesley resident couldn’t escape writing novel about Vietnam

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Dick Pirozzolo has lived in Wellesley for 40 years, but Vietnam has never been far from his thoughts. Awarded the Bronze Star for his service as an Air Force media relations officer in Saigon in 1970-71, Pirozzolo went on to work years later on U.S.-Vietnam reconciliation, including through extensive writing.

Now Pirozzolo and collaborator Michael Morris—who is a decorated U.S. Army veteran who was awarded the Purple Heart and wound up studying and practicing journalism—have applied their unique perspectives on Vietnam into co-authoring Escape from Saigon: A Novel published in January 2017 by Skyhorse Publishing New York.Pirozzolo, who runs a PR firm bearing his name, is getting the word out about the book’s release by answering, which begin with something of a humblebrag by me about my sophisticated reading habits…

 I just finished reading The Sympathizer, which is about the Vietnam War and won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. I’m going to guess you’re familiar with it and have probably read it, given your great interest in Vietnam. If so, what did you think of that book? And for others who have recently read The Sympathizer, what about your book might compel them to dive into another novel about Vietnam?

I’m partway through The Sympathizer. I did not want to read it while we were editing Escape from Saigon: A Novel. The Sympathizer takes place during the same relative time period and some of the watershed events are covered in both The Sympathizerand Escape from Saigon. Certainly the perspective of a Vietnam refugee who made his way to the States as a child is very different from a couple of Vietnam veterans in our book. I love all the plot twists and inner conflict over allegiances in The Sympathizer. In the long run though, I see The Sympathizer as an allegory for the emergence of a new American tribalism and negative attitudes that seem to be growing toward refugees, in short fear of “the other.”

Escape from Saigon resonates on several levels. It’s a fast-paced story of fear, desperation, courage and love amidst failed politics that hews closely to the historical record. It’s also a story about people—both ordinary and powerful—trapped in a besieged city over a 30-day period — from April 1 “all fools day” to April 30 when the North Vietnamese Army tanks burst through the gates of the Presidential Palace, ending the decades long conflict both in deed and symbolically.

Escape is as much about the war as it is about reporting on the war and a reminder of how much communication has advanced in the four decades. Through two of our characters — Lisette Vo, North American Broadcast System—NBS-TV’s—first Vietnamese-American war correspondent, and Sam Esposito, the hard-hitting journalist with The Washington Legend who infuriates President Nixon—we learn how grindingly cumbersome it was to deliver the news to the American public 40 years ago. Vietnam was America’s first television war, and there were only three networks, whose anchors were trusted, larger-than-life people whom we invited into our living rooms.

There’s certainly a great appetite among sectors of the American public for books/movies/TV shows about war, including WW I & WW II, as well as more recent wars and conflicts. What’s your sense of how great that interest is for material about the Vietnam war, and how have you seen that change?

There is a resurgence of interest in Vietnam. The hit musical Miss Saigon is returning to Broadway in March at the very theater where it opened in the US over two decades ago. Ken Burns has produced a new documentary series on Vietnam that will air on PBS-TV this fall. People seem to have an insatiable appetite for Vietnam War history now. I don’t know what to credit this to, perhaps enough time has passed for Americans to take a fresh look at our involvement in overseas conflicts and to try to learn some lessons from foreign entanglements that lack specific purpose.

 

Authors Dick Pirozzolo and Michael Morris, flank Tuan Nguyen CEO of Boston Global Forum as they present "Escape from Saigon" to him. Boston Global Forum helped fund research for the novel.

I’m a member of the editorial board of Boston Global Forum, founded by Gov. Michael Dukakis and Tuan Nguyen, a Vietnamese native who is credited with bringing a free and open Internet to today’s Vietnam. Much of the discussions and a number of position papers produced by this think tank focus on peaceful solutions to tensions in the South China Sea and a resolution to the conflict between China and Vietnam. No small point…Vietnam has become our ally in the Pacific, contributing to America’s ability to project influence and US Naval power in the region.

Is there an active Vietnam War veteran-specific community in the area?

The VFW has become welcoming and supportive of Vietnam Veterans over the years and attitudes toward Vietnam vets, indeed all vets, has become more positive. No one ever said, “Thank you for your service” back in the ‘70s.

When did you first start thinking about writing this novel and how long did it actually take to write? Can you discuss your writing process a bit?

It was evolutionary. Michael Morris and I had produced nonfiction books together on traditional American homebuilding.

We first met while working on an editorial project for Field & Stream, we both were experts on homebuilding and the homebuilding industry. We were also Vietnam vets so our conversation turned to our experiences in Vietnam and we often talked of doing “something” on the Vietnam War. We considered film, a definitive history of the war, and at some point—I don’t recall a eureka moment—we came up with a historical novel, and to make it manageable we decided to focus on the tumultuous 30 days of April 1975. Skyhorse Publishing, in New York, liked the concept, signed a contract, gave us an advance and we were off and running.

As far as writing in tandem—the episodic nature of the novel make it work. The rest was a matter of bringing our unique perspective and knowledge to the work—Mike served in combat in the field, I worked in Saigon as a press officer.

Note: Dick Pirozzolo will be speaking at R.J. Julia Booksellers, Madison, Connecticut  at 7 PM, March 14.  Dick Pirozzolo and Michael Morris will be speaking at Boston Global Forum, Harvard University Faculty Club at 1 PM, April 25 (BGF is open to press and the academic community) for details and to RSVP email: [email protected]

 

 

Michael Morris Reflects on Ken Burns New Documentary "The Vietnam War"

 
Erik Villard and Michael Morris with Lynn Novick, coproducer "The Vietnam War"

By

Michael Morris

Coauthor of "Escape from Saigon - a Novel"

For those of us who spent a critical part of our youth in Vietnam during the war, and lived to remember it, that decade-long conflict will forever echo in our consciousness. But it’s not just the participants who were affected by it. For our entire generation, and even for those who were born after the war, Vietnam continues to ripple through our politics and day-to-day lives in subtle yet undeniably important ways.

I recently attended the New York debut screening of “The Vietnam War,” the upcoming ten-part, 18-hour documentaryby celebrated filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick.

Michael Morris during his '67-'68 tour

Among the participants in the audience with me was Dr. Erik Villard, the official US Army historian at the Center of Military History. We sat through a one-hour segment excerpted from the documentary, which will air on PBS television stations this September, then had an opportunity to discuss the film with its creators.

At one point I noted that most of my generation—the generation that lived through the wartime period—had spent much of the past forty-something years trying to forget, or ignore, the historic details of the era. The Vietnam War was so difficult for all involved, whether we fought in the war or against it, that we have treated it like a bitter, painful memory better left undisturbed and unexamined. And, as a result, the generations that followed us have not had a real opportunity to learn about, and learn from, what we experienced firsthand.

So I asked Ken, “Who do you expect will want to watch this documentary now?”

Ken’s answer: “Everyone.” He went on to explain that there's more to the story surrounding the war than people today remember, and more than they ever knew. It's history, so it shouldn’t be overlooked or forgotten, either way.

I hope he’s right. Those of us who lived through those times will find much to remember in the film, both good and bad. Those who came after us will learn what it was like to watch it on the TV news every night, anxiously awaiting word of loved ones in the military, or to vicariously live through it by listening to the soldiers and civilians who struggled and fought on both sides of the conflict. From what I could see from the screening, the documentary—which took almost as long as the war itself to complete—does a  good job of presenting the war in every aspect, with historic footage never before seen and interviews of participants on all sides of the issue.

After the screening, out on the street, I gave Lynn a copy of “Escape from Saigon” and bid her and Ken goodbye with very mixed emotions. On one hand I’m looking forward to seeing the entire documentary, mainly because as a soldier there in 1967-68 I was so personally, deeply involved in the war. But I’m also a bit anxious as to how I will react when I re-immerse myself in something that, to this day, continues to linger in my thoughts and haunt my dreams.   

~ MM ~

For more on the Ken Burns and Lynn Novick  epic, visit TimesTalk videotaped conversation with the filmmakers and editor James Bennet of The New York Times: 

The series brings the war and the chaotic epoch it encompassed viscerally to life. Written by Geoffrey C. Ward it includes rarely seen, digitally re-mastered archival footage from sources around the globe, photographs taken by some of the most celebrated photojournalists of the 20th Century, historic television broadcasts, evocative home movies, revelatory audio recordings from inside the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations and more than 100 iconic musical recordings by many of the greatest artists of the era.

The film will be accompanied by an unprecedented outreach and public engagement program, providing opportunities for communities to participate in a national conversation about what happened during the Vietnam War, what went wrong and what lessons are to be learned. 

 In addition, there will be a robust interactive website and an educational initiative designed to engage teachers and students in multiple platforms.

For a conversation with Burns and Novick visit C-Span

Fast Forward to Baghdad for War, Love and a Criminal Investigation

When we started to promote "Escape from Saigon" we kept running into authors whose war experiences are far more contemporary than ours. Though  their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan are the stuff of 24/7 cable newscasts and the latest Presidential campaigns, our story about a war that ended four decades ago resonated powerfully with these folks. I guess when it comes to war there are some powerful universals—fear, misery, intrigue and love—that remain constant when it comes to the story of people it effects directly.

One of those individuals is Amanda Matti a 22 year-old US Navy intelligence analyst who deployed to Baghdad a dozen years ago. Amanda did her best to prepare mentally and physically to face the danger and horrors of war. What she wasn't prepared for was to fall in love...with someone on the "other side."

For Amanda and her Iraqi translator Fahdi, it was love at first sight. While serving together near the front lines of the Iraq War, the two realize their connection transcends cultures, countries and politics. Amanda knows she may have to choose between Fahdi and her career in the Navy. But the stakes are much higher as she finds herself at the center of an international criminal investigation spearheaded by a trifecta of US government agencies - the NSA, CIA and NCIS.

Spurred by a draconian double-standard, investigators quickly compile a speculative list of offenses Amanda may have committed; one being having fallen in love with an Iraqi native. Together Amanda and Fahdi defy their governments and cause international scandal as they fight for justice. It's an incredible journey from Amanda and Fahdi's first meeting, to being accused of espionage to eventually marrying and moving to San Diego where they are now raising their two daughters.

Amanda recounts her very personal war story in "A Foreign Affair" published in October of this year by W & B Publishers, 354 pages. Softcover $15.61 or Kindle $4.99. Visit Amazon to order and for excerpts at: http://tinyurl.com/hs77nnu.

Win Your Own FREE Copy of "Escape from Saigon - a Novel"

HOLIDAY PROMOTION

This was one of the many escape routes portrayed in "Escape from Saigon - a Novel" by Michael Morris and Dick Pirozzolo that chronicles the fear and desperation in Saigon during the final 30 days of the Vietnam War.

The first person who posts correct answers to all three questions in comments wins a FREE copy of this epic novel—delivered directly to you by AMAZON before the holidays—ideal gift for anyone who loves modern history, intrigue and danger in a fast read. 

                                                            What was the name of the building?
                                                            What is the street address?
                                                            Who shot this iconic photo?

Family members and employees of Skyhorse Publishing, New York and its affiliates are ineligible to participate.

Image links to "Saigon Cho Lon Then & Now" Published by Saigoneer

 

“Escape from Saigon is a sweeping saga that places you dead center in the tumultuous final days of the war in Vietnam. During this time of great uncertainty, danger and death - lines are crossed, allegiances questioned, souls collide and heroes are born. Authors Mike Morris and Dick Pirozzolo carry on the grand tradition of Michener and Clavell in that they make history come alive through rich, compelling characters in a pulsating narrative that is both timely and timeless.” 

 

~ Casey Sherman, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Finest Hours, now a major Disney motion picture,and Boston Strong