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Vernon Brewer is a Vietnam Veteran with quite a story to tell. This multiple Purple Heart Combat Vet has penned the most Honest book on Vietnam possibly ever written. The author was medivacked from Vietnam after spending his whole 18th year in the jungles with the elite 173d Airborne Brigade of the 503rd Airborne Infantry. He just recently was awarded his Bachelor of Science degree in English from Brockport State University of New York. That is where he started writing this book some 40 years ago. He lives in an A frame deep in the Finger Lakes National Forest of Central New York and is currently writing a sequel to Frenchy's Whore.
Reviewed by Tammy Ruggles for Readers' Favorite
Frenchy's Whore: Hill 522 Vietnam War by Purple Heart recipient Vernon E Brewer is a compelling look inside the author's Vietnam-related experiences, before, during, and after. We who have never been to war can only learn so much from the media or history books. These are first-hand accounts from the soldiers who lived it, telling the real story. Brewer takes you into the world in a visceral way, and you feel for the soldiers, and others caught up in the Vietnam War, what led up to it, and its aftermath. This could not have been an easy book for the author to write, but I'm glad he did because it serves as both a riveting autobiography and a history lesson. One can only hope that writing it has helped him and others grapple with the emotional, physical, and psychological fallout.
I like that Brewer isn't out to lambast the war or those who fought in it, as some war writers do, but writes about his own experiences and viewpoint. It's so interesting to hear the thought processes and opinions of those who lived it. For example, he explains that the culture of smoking marijuana and being anti-establishment wafted into the military as well. Brewer has an uncanny ability to take you into the setting he's describing, making you feel as if you're there following them around as an observer or reporter. He is skilled at filling your senses and imagination with literary, descriptive details. For example, "At dawn, the men of Wilson's two platoons moved silently off the summit, passing pillars of mist drifting near the trail like ghosts of other wars." His lovely use of language translates the horrors of war in an effective, powerful way. One part that will stay with me from now on is when he was fighting and he had to suppress and reframe what civilized American culture had taught him: "You don't hit your sister. You do not harm your fellow students. You don't hurt other people. But you must kill your enemy." He wastes no time getting into the story. You are there within the first pages and will be hooked until the closing lines. As a reviewer, I read many books a year, but Frenchy's Whore by Vernon E Brewer is one of my personal favorites.
