In Beneath the Seventeenth: From Vietnam to Home, author Clint Goodwin presents a remarkable collocation of warfare focused on the outward and private perspectives of participants in the Viet Nam conflict– as seen through the eyes of horses.
Horses have always been part of US military operations at home and abroad. Previously part of calvary battles, in recent times they are used for such endeavors as pulling caissons – military wagons transporting bodies to gravesites. The primary equine featured here is Rusty, raised on a US Marine Corps base and shipped to Saigon, his care overseen by Dr. Bobby Bates and French onlooker Clair Lefebvre, two of the book’s central humans. Clair connects with another -Texas Cajun Nic Nola, a teen volunteer. Bates’ son Jeremiah, an unusually bright teen, volunteers for service in Viet Nam based on his strong wish to serve his country. These and other combatants and military administrators have contact with the horses and one another as they face the horrors of warfare.
Goodwin details tactics and methods used by the US in that era: widespread poisonous substances like Napalm and Agent Orange, and weapons rushed to patent, including innovative developments like bombers and jets. By contrast, the mostly peasant Viet Cong defended their country against intruders using such crude but deadly means as Punji pits, disguised by underbrush, into which a Marine might fall and be fatally injured by implanted spikes. Goodwin states that “Between 1961 and 1969, over eleven thousand American servicemen died in Vietnam.” Depicting this distressing scenario as observed by Rusty and other steeds, Goodwin reveals the immediate pain of their human caregivers, which will be followed post-service agonies – wounds and depression - yet finally bringing both soldiers and horses back to peace and safety.
Goodwin, son of a World War II veteran and raised on a Texas cattle farm, has served as a US sailor, naval officer, and federal employee. Author of six similar books concerning varied warfare scenarios, he is a remarkably skilled historian, melding human conflict with contributions of steeds immersed in the fray. Goodwin thoughtfully pronounces that though the Viet Nam conflict was never officially declared as "war” by US Congress, he employs that term to honor its veterans.
Quill says: Goodwin’s book will doubtless attract readership across a wide spectrum: veterans and their families, horse lovers and respecters, and a fresh generation appreciating its wisdom, information and illumination.
For more information about Beneath the Seventeenth: From Vietnam to Home, please visit the author’s Amazon page at amazon.com/stores/Clint-Goodwin/author/B00J1MNTN8
