Author's Blurb

Thirty years after the Vietnam War I’m in the middle of yet another counseling session, trying to make some sense out of it when Dad makes a surprise visit.

I’m still hiding from the effects of a war that remains like a poison in my system. A nightmare that won’t go away. The sound of Dad’s voice takes me to a place I haven’t been before and it’s a surprise because he died when I was six months old.

I spent 1969 on patrol in the rice paddies and jungles of Phouc Tuoy Province with the rest of my platoon. In Nui Dat we lived in a relatively safe place beneath the foliage of an old rubber plantation. There, we had sand bagged tents and sand bagged bunkers built by Australian troops before us. Most of the time however, was spent outside the wire where my only protection was my wits, my training and a thin layer of jungle green.

Right now, I look like a mild mannered accountant and I act like a pillar of society. But behind this façade, I’m in turmoil. Distraught by the memories and haunted by a fear of the unknown. Despite the dramatic shift in time and space, since Vietnam, I’m still in survival mode and stumbling through a personal minefield that’s about to explode. It’s a pathway to self destruction.

My coping mechanism isn’t working as well as it used to and I can’t believe the extent to which I go in suppressing my natural instincts. I’ve got so many restrictions around what I do that I’m not being who I am. I’ve avoided this confrontation for so long, but it’s finally caught up with me. One way or another my life will change forever.

The Counselor’s questions and my search to find the truth lead me into three major battles over the next ten years. The battles with my marriage, my job and my way of living. It’s a formidable undertaking, an apocalypse even. There is no going back and in the ashes of my devastation I’m looking for my voice. It’s my essence, my spirit. My reality hangs in the balance. I must find it.


Regards Errol Pentony (ex 5pl 9rar)