Bringing it All Back Home

Napoli introduces a remarkable group of young New Yorkers who went abroad with high hopes only to find a bewildering conflict. We meet, for instance, a nurse who staged a hunger strike to promote peace while working at a field hospital, and a black soldier who achieved an unexpected camaraderie with his fellow servicemen in racially tense times. Some of these soldiers became active opponents of the war; others did not. Tracing their journeys from the streets of Brooklyn and Queens to the banks of the Mekong, and back to the most glamorous corporations and meanest homeless shelters of New York City, Napoli uncovers the variety and surprising vibrancy of the ex-soldiers' experiences. This is "an important and instructive account," according to Brokaw. It is also one whose stories resonate far beyond the five boroughs. As Publishers Weekly put it, "The bulk of them mirror the experiences of Vietnam vets from across the nation."