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MWSA Review
W. Thomas Burns's Vietnam: The Memory of a Sandlot Soldier is a short, humbly written account of a very important time in the author's life.
Starting at Marine Corps recruit training, it details the author's feelings and actions as he becomes a Marine, goes through advanced training, and deploys to Vietnam. Marine veterans will relate to his description of the "yellow footprints" and the manner with which the drill instructors taught their new charges. The book then moves into the author's deployment to Vietnam and his introduction into combat, including descriptions of the heat and smells of the jungle.
Through it all, the author is humble. He minimizes his actions, and never fails to refer to those lost in combat as heroes. It is obvious that the author is incredibly patriotic, and only felt that he did his duty for his country, nothing more, even after suffering a debilitating combat wound.
Marine veterans from the Vietnam era will relate to this story, as will any infantryman who served in combat.
Review by Rob Ballister (July 2025)
Author's Synopsis
In late December of 1968, a nineteen-year-old Marine was lying in a hospital bed after having spent eight months engaged with the enemy in the jungles of the mountains of Vietnam. During his recovery, he began writing about his war experiences. He returned to his combat unit, and later was among those wounded in action and medevaced to a military hospital in the United States. As he recovered, he continued to record his experiences "in country". Those writings form the main part of this Memoir some fifty years later---battles, heroes, everyday bravery, losing the friend right beside you, and larger than life leaders-----told simply and forthrightly of valor and patriotism.
Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle
Review Genre: Nonfiction—Memoir/Biography
Number of Pages: 96
Word Count: 9446