BOOKSBare Feet - Iron Will
Tradition led the author, James Zumwalt, to join both his father and his brother in the Navy before later choosing to transfer to the Marine Corps.
Other books by Jim Zumwalt:
During his 26 years in uniform, he served in Vietnam, in Panama, and in the first Persian Gulf war. But long after the guns had fallen silent in Vietnam, it was the war in SE Asia that (ultimately) would launch him on an unexpected journey triggered by the grievous loss of a brother who had fought there. His brother, Elmo Zumwalt III, died of complications from Agent Orange in 1988.
In an epic instance of irony, it was Jim and Elmo's father who had given the okay for the Navy to use Agent Orange. Their father, Admiral Elmo "Bud" Zumwalt, was Chief of Naval Operations at the time. And at the time, Agent Orange was badly needed to save the lives of American troops by stripping away the leafy treelines that hid Viet Cong fighters in ambush. It was a god-send.
In his return to Vietnam two decades after the war, the author was full of anger and contempt for "the enemy." But those feelings soon began to shift in the most unexpected way after scores of private talks with VC and NVA officers and troops and others. He gradually felt the forming of a common bond with how they endured their experience of pain, sacrifice, and hardship in the war.
This opened his eyes to how their side, so inferior to our side in technology and raw power, was so persevering and tough. Note: Jim Zumwalt is no apologist for the atrocities of the Viet Cong. His story in Bare Feet - Iron Will
is about the shared anguish of those who shared the battlefields and came to share, as well, the endless after-effects of what took place. He did not anticipate that.
The nature of this deeply emotional journey drew the author into a second and even more fateful passage - his own buried need for healing and return.
