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Reviews for Home to War:

“Home to War is a superbly researched book that needed to be written. It sets forth in compelling detail a whole other dimension of America’s tragic war in Vietnam, which, until now, has never been completely captured.”

-General Harold G. Moore, author of We Were Soldiers Once…And Young

“Home to War is simply the best. Gerry Nicosia has written the definitive story of the deep sense of human and humane conscience among ordinary soldiers during an extraordinary time in American history. Read this book and discover why the epoch of our war in Vietnam still keenly reverberates from the kitchen tables and porches, newspapers and journals, as well as classrooms all across this country.”

-Larry Heinemann, author of Paco’s Story

“Home to War is a comprehensive analysis which illuminates the efforts of the men who fought not just in the jungles of Vietnam, but also when they returned to America. We should be grateful to Gerry Nicosia for documenting this struggle in a meaningful and heartfelt way.”

-Oliver Stone, director of Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July

“Gerry Nicosia has an uncommon understanding of the struggle of veterans to give meaning to their war and a struggle, too, to redeem themselves. Home to War is a powerful history of our times.”

-Gloria Emerson, author of Winners and Losers

“Home to War is a fascinating account of the generation of young Americans whose lives were thrown into turmoil and put at risk by the Vietnam War, of their bravery under enemy fire over there and their bravery under political fire at home.”

-Senator Alan Cranston, Chair, Veterans’ Affairs Committee

“Every Vietnam veteran should read this remarkable book. It’s a part of our history that a lot of us don’t know anything about, and it’s essential for an understanding of how the war finally came to an end and what happened to the soldiers who fought it.”

-Angelo J. “Charlie” Liteky, awarded the Congressional Medal of
Honor for “exceptional heroism” while serving with the 199th
Light Infantry Brigade on December 6, 1967, in Bien Hoa
Province, Republic of Vietnam.

“After war, we forget. We lose history. Home to War is about veterans of the war in Vietnam who take on the responsibility of remembering. They serve again by telling the consequences of war. Gerald Nicosia has written a history that we as a nation have not faced. This book is a must-read if we are to understand the America we have become.”

-Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Woman Warrior

“Home to War captures America’s struggle to heal the wounds of a war too many—particularly those at the highest levels of our government—would have preferred to forget. From triple canopy jungles along the Ho Chi Minh trail and the waters of the Mekong Delta, to VA hospitals across the nation, heated debates in both chambers of Congress, and an incredible grassroots movement led by Vietnam veterans aiming to keep faith with their brothers and sisters in arms, Gerry Nicosia’s important new book ties together the many threads of a difficult period in our history every American should take the time to understand in its totality.”

-Senator John F. Kerry, swift-boat commander in South Vietnam,
1969, and recipient of the Silver Star

“Home to War is an extraordinary achievement of research and writing. Its eloquence and power will serve the cause of justice for veterans, but also give to all Americans a sobering lesson about war, peace, and broken promises. I hope it will be widely read.”

-Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States

“Home to War for the first time puts together a history that has been an intimate part of the lives of thousands of us in the veterans’ community over the past 30 years—makes a coherent whole of that journey toward healing and recognition, which otherwise would probably have been forgotten. Thanks to Gerald Nicosia, these people and events are now preserved and will be remembered. This book needs to be on every library shelf in America.”

-Colonel David H. Hackworth, author of About Face

Blurbs for Home to War -- Page 3“A quarter century after the Vietnam War ended, the story of the Vietnam Veterans’ Movement remains compelling. In this captivating work by Gerry Nicosia, the voices and stories of these American veterans force us to confront the issues of the war and the question of why soldiers who came home to peace could find none. The sense of loss and waste that pervades Home to War is overwhelming.”

-Duong Van Mai Elliott, author of The Sacred Willow: Four
Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family

“Home to War describes the complex history of those Vietnam veterans who returned to America (long before the 58,000-plus names of those killed-in-action were etched on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial) with the sincere conviction that the war was both misdirected and poorly-led. Refusing to be silent about the things they had learned, this generation of veterans protested in ways both creative and destructive—and Nicosia portrays it all in a book that is well-researched, well-written and ultimately courageous.”

-Asa Baber, “Men” columnist, Playboy Magazine

“With the same painstaking thoroughness and clarity that made his biography of Jack Kerouac definitive, Gerald Nicosia illuminates in his new book another mortal struggle with hell-bent—and here literally murderous—received opinion. Indeed, with Home to War, Nicosia lays claim to being our preeminent historian of the hard and gritty birth pains of the new paradigm. This work has the feel of a milestone of political and social history.”

-Aram Saroyan, author of Trio and Last Rites

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