Читать книгу Down a Country Lane - Gary Blinco - Страница 5

INTRODUCTION

These chapters emerge from memories of my early life and my personal experiences until my return from the Vietnam War in 1970. I have relied on discussions with my parents and the older members of my family to form the accounts of the very early days on the old farm; I was far too young to remember them. The stories my parents often told on cold winter nights around the wood stove, gave me a deep insight into the pain, pleasure and challenge they endured in the beginning. Some accounts, like the circumstances surrounding the death of my sister, are based on some supposition. I did not have access to all the relevant details. All I knew for certain was that she was seriously burnt and suffered greatly before she finally died.

We each see life’s events through our own eyes, and we live to our own motivations, beliefs and agendas. Any member of my family, my military comrades, friends or business associates could write parts of this story from a different perspective. Most, however, will remember my determination to ignore the apparent status quo and follow a stronger vision into my future.

My stories of the Vietnam War are based on the facts as I remember them and my feelings at the time. Where I have presumed to report from the perspective of our then enemies, the Vietcong, I have necessarily relied on some author’s license. The hardships, courage and fear described, I suspect, are real enough. In any case, I resolved to try and see the conflict from both sides as far as my empathy and experience would allow. I wondered often how these soldiers coped, out- gunned and outclassed by a well-equipped enemy as they were. They were the enemy for the moment – but one could not help feel a grudging admiration and moments of sympathy as they fought without an end in sight. We at least knew that the tour would end in a year if we survived, or with our death or wounding if we did not.

The enemy military units mentioned are real. I have a good knowledge of the Vietcong infrastructure from intelligence reports and from our day-to-day contact with them on the rather obscure battlefield. The Vietcong soldiers depicted are, however, entirely fictitious and based on my speculations at the time. As a matter of protocol, I have avoided direct reference to most people, used only first names or changed the names of some characters in this book, to protect the privacy of the people concerned.

I completed two tours of duty in Vietnam, so one or two of the events described may be out of sequence or compressed, time sometimes clouds the memories. Otherwise the stories are essentially as they occurred.