JIM SIMMEN
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Vietnam 1968

                                                      

Although the Vietnam war occupied only one year of my life, it stretched my emotions to the breaking point. I like to make the analogy of wrapping a rubber band around the girth of an elephant, then trying to  reuse the rubber band to wrap newspapers. 

Not that I am complaining. As much as I enjoyed the experience, I hated it. I feared it and loved it, and I am also ashamed and proud of it. But it probably should have been performed towards the end of my life so that I didn't have so much time to remember. 

But while in Vietnam, I wrote letters to my brother, Vern. He saved them and returned them to me 10 years later. I submitted them for inclusion on the Vietnam veterans wall in New York City in 1983. A quote from one of the letters was etched  on the wall along with excerpts from letters, diary entries, and poems written by Americans during the Vietnam Era. These quotes are supplemented by news dispatches and public statements about the war. 

I attended the dedication in 1985 in NYC accompanied by my parents. 

Here is link to  the New York Vietnam veteran's wall and to my quote.

http://www.nyvietnamveteransmemorial.org/vvm/memorial_simmen.html

    Bill Coutourie produced a book and a movie about the letters entitled, DEAR AMERICA, LETTERS HOME FROM VIETNAM. The movie received a primetime Emmy Award in 1987.  I do not sell copies of this book.

 I wrote two novels about Vietnam.

THOSE WHO DARED is a war story about a solid platoon of men who lose one of their squad members during a skirmish and search heroically to find him.

LOVE HELD HOSTAGE is about a squad of men 20 years after the Vietnam war  who are still searching for their lost comrade, but now, for his soul.

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