In the Shadow of Vietnam

Memoirist, poet, editor, and Marine veteran, W.D. Ehrhart taught English and history at the Haverford School in Haverford, Pennsylvania. The author of twenty books, his prose and poetry have appeared in hundreds of publications including the Los Angeles Times, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Utne Reader, Reader’s Digest, American Poetry Review and the Virginia Quarterly Review. He was a major presence in the Ken Burns and Lynn Novick documentary The Vietnam War.

“As a poet and editor, Bill Ehrhart is clearly one of the major figures in Vietnam War literature”—John Newman, curator of the Vietnam War Literature Collection at Colorado State University; “one of the great poets and writers of nonfiction produced by the Vietnam War”—The Nation; “a valuable addition to collections on the Vietnam war.... Recommended”—Book Report; “topics include apartheid, American intervention in Central America, and the return of the author (a veteran) to Viet Nam”—Indochina Interchange.

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgments      Preface      On the Death of Robert Lowell      On Michael Herr’s Dispatches      Politics and Poetry in South Africa      The Long Road Home to Intimacy      An Address to Middle America      Places and Ways to Live      The United States Screw & Bolt Company      Learning the Hard Way      Waiting for the Fire      Preserving the American Myth      Going Back      Soldier-Poets of the Vietnam War      Los Norteamericanos y Centroamdrica      On Memorial Day      Stealing Hubcaps      On The Genre of Silence      A Letter to McGeorge Bundy      On Flag-Burning      Teaching the Vietnam War      On U.S. Policy Toward Post-War Vietnam      Don’t Stand on Protocol      Hue City Re-Visited      A Common Language      Military History of W. D. Ehrhart      Index      About the Author