Journaling about War, Part 2 (Vietnam)

I have written about this many times before. I am drawing links today to all the pieces I’ve written in the last many years about my brother who was a Marine in Vietnam in 1968 during the TET Offensive. Most of my war “experience” was filtered through the eyes of an overly analytical 10 to 11 year old girl. Me.

So what does this have to do with memoir? Bunches.

It connects my online writing, that I nearly always share with others, but were really an online journal written for me. Now I am linking them together into what might be stand-alone topical mini-ebooks or might be chapters in a larger memoir or might be part of a read for pay platform.

But for today, the letter V, this post, is for Vietnam and within it I embed links to some of what I consider my “best” pieces . I’m not sure all my “best” pieces should be so heartbreaking for me to reread.

Piece One

This first linked-piece is existential. It was written on the day that I came to understand that my brother was dying. I am not sure why I have a Magrit bowler with apples on a post title mentioning Kundera. In any case this is all about my brother and me, and surreal imaginary photographs.

A Milan Kundera Day

Do you like how I linked the three imagined images in the above embedded post, in a way that is similar, but not identical way, to the way I am linking at to posts written 10, or so, years ago? I think the recursive elements make the linked-story stronger. Perhaps it is a technique you want to try.

Piece Two

Memorial day and Veteran’s day always confused me. Which was for the living and which was for the dead? And what about the liminal space in my head linking them?

Sister of a Soldier – Memorial Day and Vietnam

Piece Three

Politics and war. Some of us are Political by Nature. I was political in first grade.

Be Kind When People Say, "I'm So Sick of Politics" – Part 1

Piece Four

Then I learned what politics translates into.

The Personal Nature of Politics

The following link is the one I think of when I think of my brother Roger and memoir.

Piece Five

A moment in time and everything changes.

His Birthday and the Long Death of My Brother

Piece Six

Then he was gone, I started to adjust, and then his home was up for a tax sale.

Closure Is Not Comfort

Do these all work together, with a few more bits and pieces, as an ebook? Maybe they fall together as a chapters in a book. I am not sure, yet, but I know that these stories are parts of my story.

Grouping older writings together is fine. Try it. Rearrange them. Add Transitions. Dig, mine, and harvest old writing.