$16.95 Paperback 6” x 9″ 113 pages ISBN 978-1-63381-161-4 |
Wayne’s War chronicles the author’s experience as a staff officer and company commander in the 9th Infantry Division during Operation Speedy Express in 1968–69 in the Mekong Delta. Grounded in the 240 letters he wrote to his wife during this time, as well as experiences before and since, he describes the conflict between duty and conscience he encountered at a personal level that the country experienced nationally, both during the Vietnam War and the decades that follow. His unit’s mission of winning the hearts and minds of the people through mechanisms bordering on genocide begets his disillusionment, causing him to rethink most of what he’d been taught to believe. His later life builds on his new beliefs, sending him on pathways he never anticipated before participating in the war.
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“…Told through his letters home, this is a powerful accounting of both the war and the war within. Burton’s writing transports the reader to ground-level Vietnam and the turmoil of the times.”
—Claire Alemian, author of In the Shadow of Light
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Dr. Wayne Myles Burton, EdD, served almost five decades in higher education leadership, his last thirteen as President of North Shore Community College (Massachusetts). Commissioned through Bowdoin College’s ROTC program, he served with the 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta from 1968–69. He has been a legislator, a town councilor, a community activist, and Betsy’s husband for over 50 years.